UAH | Engineering | Departments | Chemical & Materials | Faculty & Staff

Dr. Isaac Torres-Díaz

Assistant Professor, CME

Contact

301 Sparkman Drive
Engineering Building
Room 117
Huntsville, AL 35899
Campus Map

Biography

Dr. Isaac Torres Díaz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. He received his Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Universidad Nacional de Trujillo (Perú), M.S. in mechanical engineering, and Ph.D. in chemical engineering degrees from the University of Puerto Rico – Mayagüez campus. After graduate school, he joined the University of Florida as a post-doctoral research associate for two years. Prior to joining UAH, Dr. Torres Díaz worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Johns Hopkins University in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Dr. Torres Díaz research interests are centered on the fundamental phenomenological behavior and applications of colloidal suspensions composed of anisotropic particles and suspensions with a polar behavior generated by the influence of an external field. We use novel approaches to model anisotropic colloids by quantifying their interactions that depend on their relative position and orientation. The quantification of the directional behavior generated by anisotropic particles will improve the current applications, such as controlling the directed assembly, micro- and nano-robots, tunable (soft) materials, active suspensions, anti-fouling surfaces, colloidal delivery systems, separation processes, magneto-rheological fluids, etc.

Personal Website

Education

Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, University of Puerto Rico at MayagÜez - 2012
M.S., Mechanical Engineering, University of Puerto Rico at MayagÜez - 2007
Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering, Universidad Nacional de Trujillo, Peru - 2004.

Honors & Awards

NSF CAREER Award, ENG-CBET 2024 – “Dynamics of Binary Anisotropic Magnetic Colloids”

Expertise

Multi-scale modeling of anisotropic colloids
Magnetic suspensions
Synthesis and characterization of magnetic nanoparticles

Real-time imaging

Recent Publications

D. Harris, and I. Torres-Díaz, “Directed assembly of small binary clusters of magnetizable ellipsoids”, Soft Matter 20, 6411-6423 (2024). [doi:10.1039/D4SM00300D]
T. Thelen, A. Jara, and I. Torres-Díaz, “Synergistic interactions of binary suspensions of magnetic anisotropic particles”, Soft Matter 19, 640-651 (2023). [doi:10.1039/D2SM01234K]
I. Torres-Díaz, R. Hendley, A. Mishra, A. Yeh, and Michael A. Bevan. “Hard superellipse phases: particle shape anisotropy & curvature”. Soft Matter 18, 6, 1319–1330 (2022). [doi: 10.1039/D1SM01523K]

I. Torres-Díaz, B. Rupp, Y. Yang, and M. A. Bevan, “Energy landscapes for ellipsoids in AC electric fields”. Soft Matter 14, 934-944 (2018). [doi: 10.1039/C7SM02287E]
I. Torres-Díaz and M. A. Bevan, “General Potential for Anisotropic Colloid-Surface Interactions”. Langmuir 33, 4356-4365 (2017). [doi: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.7b00051]
Z. Zhao, I. Torres-Díaz, C. Velez, D. Arnold, and C. Rinaldi, “Brownian Dynamics Simulations of Magnetic Nanoparticles Captured in Strong Magnetic Field Gradients”. J. Phys. Chem. C 121(1), 801-810 (2016). [doi: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.6b09409]
L. Maldonado-Camargo, I. Torres-Díaz, A. Chiu-Lam, M. Hernández, and C. Rinaldi, “Estimating the contribution of Brownian and Néel relaxation in a magnetic fluid through dynamic magnetic susceptibility measurements”. JMMM 412, 223-233 (2016). [doi: 10.1016/j.jmmm.2016.03.087]
C. Velez-Cuervo, I. Torres-Díaz, L. Maldonado-Camargo, C. Rinaldi, and D. P. Arnold, “Magnetic assembly and cross-linking of nanoparticles for releasable magnetic microstructures”. ACS Nano 9(10), 10165-10172 (2015). [doi: 10.1021/acsnano.5b03783]
I. Torres-Díaz and C. Rinaldi, “Recent progress in ferrofluids research: novel applications of magnetically controllable and tunable fluids”. Soft Matter 10, 8584 (2014). [doi: 10.1039/c4sm01308e]
I. Torres-Díaz, A. Cortes, Y. Cedeño-Mattei, O. Perales-Perez, and C. Rinaldi, “Flows and torques in Brownian ferrofluids subjected to rotating uniform magnetic fields in a cylindrical and annular geometry”. Phys. Fluids 26, 012004 (2014). [doi: 10.1063/1.4863201]

Faculty & Staff