Turbulence is all around us — in the air we breathe, the water we drink, the storms moving across the atmosphere and the plasmas inside experimental fusion devices. It’s the chaotic swirling motion of air, water, plasma and other fluids that plays an essential role in how energy moves, how pollutants and heat spread through the ocean and atmosphere, how fluids move through chemical processing plants and how plasmas behave in extreme environments.
Michigan State University has received a $30 million grant from the National Science Foundation, or NSF, beginning Sept. 1, to establish Transformative Explorations in Multi-Physics and Engineering of Scientific Turbulence or TEMPEST, a new Science and Technology Center, or STC, bringing together physicists, mathematicians, engineers and AI researchers to focus on one of science’s most difficult problems: understanding and controlling turbulence.
“This National Science Foundation grant is a tremendous vote of confidence in Michigan State University and an investment in the strength of our faculty to understand some of the most complex scientific challenges facing our world,” said MSU President Kevin M. Guskiewicz, Ph.D. “This is exactly the kind of ambitious, collaborative research that defines our role as a national research university.”
According to MSU’s Vice President for Research and Innovation Shashank Priya, NSF Science and Technology Centers represent some of the nation’s boldest investments in transformative research — bringing together leading experts across disciplines and institutions to confront the most complex scientific challenges of our time.
“TEMPEST represents the kind of collaborative, impact-driven research that defines Michigan State University’s research enterprise, uniting faculty, students/postdocs and world-class partners from academia, government and industry around a problem that has challenged scientists for more than a century,” said Priya. “Learning to understand and, one day, control these complex, ever-changing systems could reshape how we fly, how we power our world, how we forecast the weather, and how we protect public health.”
A better understanding of turbulence — from tiny, microscopic interactions to massive atmospheric jet streams — could help researchers around the world address myriad challenges in science and engineering.
MSU faculty and students from the colleges of Engineering and Natural Science will work with researchers from Auburn University, Baylor University, Georgia Institute of Technology, San José State University, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, University of Rochester and Yale University to combine theory, computation, AI techniques and experimentation to build trustworthy predictive models of real-world turbulence for high consequence applications. Unfunded partners include Los Alamos National Laboratory, Pacific Fusion, Sandia National Laboratories, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Researchers in the College of Engineering will focus on applications for energy, transportation, aerospace and advanced manufacturing.
“Engineering is ultimately about understanding the world well enough to design something better, and turbulence is at the heart of many of the systems engineers work to design and develop,” said John Papapolymerou, dean of the College of Engineering. “TEMPEST will allow our researchers and students to connect these discoveries about turbulent flows with real-world engineering challenges that benefit society — from energy and transportation to advanced manufacturing and aerospace.”
College of Natural Science researchers, however, will investigate new theories and mathematical frameworks to explain how turbulence emerges, evolves and interacts across different scales — providing the foundation for predicting and controlling turbulent flows.
“Some of the most important scientific discoveries begin with a very basic question: Why does turbulence behave the way it does?” said Eric Hegg, dean of the College of Natural Science. “Predicting its behavior remains extraordinarily difficult, but TEMPEST creates an exciting environment where scientists can work alongside engineers to uncover the fundamental principles behind turbulence and translate that knowledge into new possibilities.”
Using theory, computation, experimentation and artificial intelligence in concert, TEMPEST researchers will be able to test new ideas against real-world observations and use those results to refine predictive models. This interdisciplinary approach is designed to move researchers beyond understanding why turbulence behaves as it does to predicting how it will behave and, ultimately, to controlling it.
As stated by TEMPEST director and professor in the colleges of Engineering and Natural Science, Michael Murillo, TEMPEST is about changing the way we approach turbulence.
“Rather than studying individual pieces of this enormously complex problem in isolation, we are bringing together theory, experimentation, computation and artificial intelligence to develop a deeper understanding of turbulence across scales,” said Murillo. “Our goal is not simply to understand turbulence better, but to make it predictable and controllable in ways that will enable new technologies and scientific discoveries.”
The center will make its data and software broadly available and engage the public through museum exhibitions, immersive media and educational programs that are expected to reach more than 10,000 K-12 students annually. TEMPEST will also help train an AI-fluent scientific workforce prepared to tackle complex problems across disciplines.
The center will have a significant impact beyond MSU, strengthening Michigan’s economy through federal research investment, workforce development and innovation.
“For over 170 years, Michigan State University has been at the forefront of American innovation. As one of our nation’s preeminent research institutions, there is no better place to unlock the secrets of turbulence and build a leading-edge future than right here in Michigan,” said U.S. Rep Haley Stevens. “Proud to see these federal dollars come home to Michigan to strengthen our scientific research enterprise at such a critical moment for our state — something I’m always fighting for in the House.”
According to U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, this investment demonstrates Michigan State University’s national leadership and expertise in producing cutting-edge scientific research.
“I’m thrilled this new center will help MSU conduct vital research that could have applications on Americans’ everyday lives, from improving air travel to strengthening our national security,” said Peters. “This center will also help bolster critical industries in our state and develop the highly skilled workforce Michigan needs to compete in a global economy.”
“Michigan invented the middle class by building things with our hands, and we’re not going to lose the next generation of jobs to China because we didn’t train our own workforce,” said U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin. “This funding is welcome news because this program will allow our students to get the hands-on experience they need to build their career right here in Michigan, at Michigan State.”
Connecting fundamental research with industry could create another benefit for Michigan.
“MSU is home to some of the brightest researchers in the country, and this investment will help them keep leading the way in scientific discovery,” said U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett. “The knowledge, talent and technologies developed through this center have the potential to create new opportunities for Michigan businesses while strengthening our region’s position as a national leader in innovation. I’m proud to support efforts in Congress to make this investment possible.”
The TEMPEST STC will be housed in the Engineering Building until MSU’s new Leinweber Center for Engineering and Digital Innovation opens in 2028.
