Vatsal Sanjay uses fluid dynamics to understand how substances flow along the ‘highways’ of underground fungal systems.
Fungi create vast underground networks that function as nature's highways, transporting water, nutrients and even genetic information over great distances and through ecosystems. Despite their critical role in maintaining planetary health, we know surprisingly little about how fungi construct these highways and control internal flows.
Vatsal Sanjay combines computational fluid dynamics with high-resolution imaging to gain insight into these flows. His research aims to study how factors such as cell wall stiffness, cytoplasmic rheology and network architecture influence fluid flow and nutrient transport within fungi. Through numerical simulations, theoretical analysis,and experimental validation, Vatsal seeks to map these processes, from individual fungal cells to entire networks.
Vatsal Sanjay (1996) studied Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology in Roorkee and obtained his PhD cum laude in 2022 at the University of Twente, where he is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher.
