Mr. Dong Wang, a PhD candidate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK), has been honored with the 2025 Distinguished Student Program (DS) Award by the American Physical Society (APS). Supervised by Professor Penghao Duan, his groundbreaking research on multiphase fluid dynamics has earned him this competitive recognition, which celebrates exceptional early-career researchers in physics.

Mr. Wang's award-winning presentation, titled "A Central-Moment Lattice Boltzmann Study of Bubble Interaction and Coalescence in Shear-Thinning Viscoelastic Fluids," introduces an advanced computational method to simulate bubble behavior in non-Newtonian fluids. By developing an advanced central-moment lattice Boltzmann method, his work successfully models the complex behavior of rising bubbles in shear-thinning viscoelastic systems. Simulations of two side-by-side bubbles show that fluid elasticity promotes bubble coalescence, while shear-thinning properties and increased solvent viscosity suppress it. These findings clarify the interplay between different viscoelastic properties in multiphase flows and offer a predictive framework for optimizing bubble behavior in industrial processes involving complex fluids, such as gas–liquid mass transfer in chemical reactors, gas evolution in battery electrodes, and aeration or foaming in food processing.