The National Science Foundation has funded a five-year, $30 million Science and Technology Center to pursue a long-standing scientific challenge: predicting and ultimately controlling turbulence. The center, known as TEMPEST (Transformative Explorations in Multi-Physics and Engineering of Scientific Turbulence), launches Sept. 1 and brings together physicists, mathematicians, engineers and artificial intelligence researchers from eight universities.
Multidisciplinary effort to confront a persistent problem
Led by Michigan State University, TEMPEST aims to connect fundamental theory, high-fidelity computation and laboratory experiments in a continuous feedback loop so models can be rapidly tested and refined against empirical evidence. The approach is intended to produce predictive tools that apply across the many contexts where turbulence matters — from atmospheric and oceanic flows to industrial processes and the plasmas inside experimental fusion devices.
"What makes this center especially promising is the unusual breadth of expertise assembled around a common scientific challenge,"
said Jessica Shang, an associate professor in the University of Rochester’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and a staff scientist at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics. Shang is part of the project team at URochester, which will receive more than $2.7 million from the grant.
Researchers describe turbulence as extraordinarily difficult to predict because it involves complex interactions over an enormous range of spatial and temporal scales. Hussein Aluie, a professor of mechanical engineering and of mathematics and a senior scientist at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, emphasized that linking theory, computation and experiment under extreme conditions is central to generating the predictive understanding needed to advance technologies such as fusion.
Why better turbulence models matter
Turbulence governs how energy, heat and pollutants are transported in fluids and plasmas. Improved predictive models could:
- Enhance climate and weather forecasting by refining representations of atmospheric turbulence;
- Improve design and efficiency of industrial flow systems, including turbines and aircraft;
- Accelerate progress in fusion energy by better modeling plasma behavior under extreme conditions.
The center’s combination of disciplines — theory, computation, experimentation and AI — is intended to shorten the cycle between hypothesis and validation, enabling faster iteration and model improvement than single-discipline efforts typically allow.
Structure and scale of the initiative
TEMPEST is funded as an NSF Science and Technology Center, a program designed to support sustained, large-scale, multidisciplinary research. The primary award covers a five-year period. Participating institutions will coordinate experiments, share computational resources and develop algorithms that leverage machine learning to bridge scales and inform theoretical models.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Total NSF award | $30 million (five years) |
| University of Rochester allocation | More than $2.7 million |
| Lead institution | Michigan State University |
By integrating experimental facilities — including extreme-condition plasma and fluid experiments — with advanced simulation and AI-driven analysis, TEMPEST leaders hope to capture the multi-scale physics that have long stymied predictive modeling efforts.
Success would have wide-ranging consequences across science and engineering. From the practical needs of industry to the strategic goal of realizing fusion power, improved control and prediction of turbulent systems could reduce uncertainty in design and operations, and enable technologies currently constrained by incomplete understanding of chaotic flows.
The center’s organizers emphasize collaboration across the partner institutions and disciplines as crucial to the project’s mission. With the formal start date approaching, investigators will begin coordinating experimental campaigns, computing workflows and theoretical efforts aimed at producing testable, scalable models of turbulent behavior.
For the University of Rochester and other partners, participation in TEMPEST represents a major investment in a problem that sits at the intersection of basic science and technological application — one that may yield practical dividends if the center's integrated approach shortens the path from discovery to deployment.
