John Dabiri, an associate professor of aeronautics and bioengineering at California Institute of Technology (Caltech), United States, holds a B.S.E. degree from Princeton University, United States, and an M.S. and Ph.D. from Caltech. SEYI GESINDE writes on the achievements of this young African-American, born to Nigerian parents, whose academic work recently fetched him the $500,000 MacArthur Fellowship, popularly called “Genius Grant,”thereby emerging the youngest scholar to receive what is now known as a “Genius Grant” from MacArthur Foundation.

•Ebony Magazine “Power 100” Most Influential Black Americans (2010) •Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2009)
•Popular Science Magazine “Brilliant 10” Scientists (2008) •Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award (2008)
•Donald Coles Prize for Best Experiment, California Institute of Technology (2005) •Winner, American Physical Society Gallery of Fluid Motion (2004)
•Oral Presentation Award, Southern California Biomedical Engineering Symposium (2002) •John Marshall II Memorial Prize for Independent Research, Princeton University (2001)
•Morgan W. McKinzie Senior Thesis Prize Finalist with Distinction, Princeton University (2001) •Grade of A with Distinction (A+), B.S.E. Thesis, Princeton University (2001).

Young Nigerian scholar, Professor John Dabiri is an accomplished man, whose age is not commensurate with his achievements in life. Within a short period of his ascendancy into the academic world, John has almost risen to the peak of his career. Today, he is being addressed as a professor in the field of Aeronautics and Bioengineering at California Institute of Technology (Caltech), United States, a distinct academic symbol he earned to himself at the age of 30.

At present, John is an assistant professor at the Graduate Aeronautical Laboratories, with a combined honour in Bioengineering at Caltech. He assumed this position after he graduated in June, 2001 from Princeton University, United States, with a B.S.E. degree summa cumlaude in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

It was in September of that same year he started off at Caltech, as a National Defence Science and Engineering Graduate Fellow, Betty and Gordon Moore Fellow, and Y.C. Fung Fellow in Bioengineering.

There, with Professor Morteza Gharib, as his supervisor, John earned an M.S. degree in Aeronautics in June 2003, after which he bagged a Ph.D. in April, 2005, in Bioengineering with a minor in Aeronautics.

On completion of his doctorate degree, John teamed up with the Caltech faculty in May, 2005, and in 2008, he was selected as an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator for research in bio-inspired propulsion. Thereafter, the Popular Science Magazine named him one of its “Brilliant 10” scientists.

John, a specialist in mechanics and dynamics of biological propulsion, theoretical fluid dynamic, energy conversion, evolutionary biology, and biomechanics focused his research works on unravelling the secrets of one of the earliest means of animal locomotion, what he did was to study some of the simplest multicellular organisms, jellyfish medusae, which propel themselves by contracting cells in their bell-shaped outer skin and generating jet forces in the tail end, with tentacles trailing behind.

His research from a theoretical engineering perspective shows that “elucidating the mechanisms of locomotion depends on detailed mathematical analysis of the fluid vortex rings that jellyfish form in the surrounding water by contracting their bell.”

Now, John’s research results have “significantly increased scientists’ knowledge of the impact of size and speed on the formation of optimal vortex rings,” the reason being that his research submission shows that “the relative impact of viscosity on propulsion decreases with greater size,” and with his “fluid dynamics theory,” the implication is that “rowing becomes a more efficient means of locomotion as animals grow larger.”

It was this research work that won him the $500,000 MacArthur Foundation grant. The MacArthur Fellows Programme award is an unrestricted fellowships to talented individuals, who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.

There are three criteria for selection of Fellows: exceptional creativity, promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishment, and potential for the fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work. With this stated criteria, was not only qualified, he merited the award.

John did not stop at his findings, with colleagues who supported him, he went forther to confirm the experimentally of his research result by examining propulsion during maturation and in adult specimens of varying size across hundreds of species, and they also found that a hybrid jet-paddling motion brings the advantage of drawing nearby prey into the bell, where the tentacles can capture them.

With this experiment, John had successfully invented “a method that allows divers to use tiny reflective particles to visualise, with high speed and fine spatial resolution, the fluid dynamics of propulsion by jellyfish in their native habitats.”

This technique provides a wealth of new data that can be used to test and refine models of vortex behaviour. The conclusion now is that John’s research “has profound implications not only for understanding the evolution and biophysics of locomotion in jellyfish and other aquatic animals, but also for a host of distantly related questions and applications in fluid dynamics, from blood flow in the human heart to the design of wind power generators.”


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