Richard Manasseh

Biography

Professor Richard Manasseh is a mechanical engineer with specialist knowledge of fluid dynamics. At a fundamental level, Professor Manasseh’s research focuses on wave modes and oscillators in fluids and their interactions.

He is best known for his work on the vibrations of bubbles, called bubble acoustics. His active projects are on extracting data relevant to climate change from the sounds of breaking ocean waves, ocean wave-power machines and coastal protection, underwater sound control for defence applications, and fundamentals of bushfire smoke dispersal. He has also recently led projects on the interaction of ultrasound with microbubbles and live cells for medical diagnostics and therapeutics, and the interaction of ultrasound with droplets for food processing. Further applications of Professor Manasseh’s research have included spacecraft engineering, coastal oceanography, thunderstorms, submarine noise, wastewater treatment and microfluidic devices.

He is the author of a textbook, Fluid Waves. In Stanford University's 2022 analysis of lifetime impact, he was ranked in the top 2% of researchers worldwide in the field of mechanical engineering acoustics.

Professor Manasseh is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers, Australia (IEAust), and an IEAust Chartered Professional Engineer. He has served as both President and Vice-President of the Australasian Fluid Mechanics Society. He became a full-time academic in 2010 after a career in industrial R&D and headed Swinburne's Department of Mechanical and Product Design Engineering for three years after a year as Mechanical Engineering Discipline Leader. He is experienced in communicating science to the general public via public lectures, radio and TV.