Daniele Massaro

Postdoctoral researcher in Fluid Mechanics at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. My current research aims to investigate vortex dynamics in wall-bounded flows. During my PhD, I studied transitional and turbulent shear flows through space-adaptive direct numerical simulations.

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About Me

Originally from Verona, I hold a Bachelor and Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering from Politecnico di Milano. During my Master's thesis, I conducted research on the stability of wall-bounded flows with spanwise forcing with Prof. Maurizio Quadrio. Then I obtained a PhD in computational fluid dynamics from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, under the supervision of Prof. Philipp Schlatter and Lect. Saleh Rezaeiravesh. We conducted space-adaptive direct numerical simulations to study transitional and turbulent shear flows. Currently, I am a Postdoctoral fellow at MIT working on vortex dynamics with Prof. Wim van Rees. 

Contact Details

Daniele Massaro
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139
USA
danmas@mit.edu

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Research

Interests

I've always had wide-ranging interests, from philosophy to the natural sciences. Whilst I ended up following a scientific career, I've kept up a real love of literature and the humanities; I still lose myself in classic novels whenever I can (you'll find a few recommendations below). At Politecnico di Milano, I built up a solid theoretical foundation, particularly through courses in functional and complex analysis, while also covering subjects like rotary wing dynamics, spacecraft orbits, and structural design for aerospace systems. But it was fluid mechanics that really grabbed me: there's something rather elegant about how it brings together maths, physics, and engineering.

My work in turbulence started with my Master's thesis on stability and transition delay. During my PhD, I delved into wall turbulence and coherent structures, using high-order spectral element methods and adaptive mesh refinement for direct numerical simulations. To get a deeper understanding, we combined established techniques like Proper Orthogonal Decomposition with cutting-edge approaches such as Shannon transfer entropy from information theory, uncovering mechanisms in transitional and turbulent flows.

I've also explored other topics, like wind turbine design, biological flows, adjoint-based optimisation, and vortex dynamics, and may well pursue them further in future.

Teaching

MIT

  • Master's thesis supervision - Spring 2026

KTH

Teaching assistant

  • Mekanik I (Classical Mechanics) - 2020, 2021
  • Strömningsmekanik (Fluid Mechanics) - 2021, 2022, 2023
  • Teknisk strömningsmekanik (Fluid Mechanics for Engineers) - 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
  • Master's thesis supervision - Fall 2021

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Email

danmas@mit.edu