Snezhana I. Abarzhi is an applied mathematician and theoretical physicist specializing in the dynamics of fluids and plasmas and their applications in nature and technology. Her research has revealed that instabilities elucidate dynamics of supernova blasts, and that supernovae explode more slowly and less turbulently than previously thought, changing the understanding of the mechanisms by which heavy atomic nuclei are formed in these explosions. Her works have found the mechanism of interface stabilization, the special self-similar class in interfacial mixing, and the fundamentals of Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities."Interface dynamics: Mechanisms of stabilization and destabilization and structure of flow fields". Stanford University, 13 December 2019, CTR Tea Seminars, Center for Turbulence Research, Stanford Engineering."Fluid instabilities and interfacial mixing". Princeton University, 14 October 2022, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Departmental Seminars.APS Fellows Archive: Fellows nominated by the Division of Fluid Dynamics in 2020, retrieved 6 November 2020.
Education and career Snezhana I. Abarzhi was born and raised in Vasilkov, a suburb of Kiev, in 1967, in the former Soviet Union, to a Bulgarian-Ukrainian family, the daughter of Ivan I. Abarzhi (a doctor of science and professor) and Maria I. Abarzhi (a school teacher and vice-principal). In 1984 after graduating high school with the gold medal of excellence, she pursued her higher education at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT). At the MIPT Abarzhi earned bachelor's degrees in physics and applied mathematics and in molecular biology in 1987, accomplished the Landau's course in theoretical physics in 1988, and then earned a master's degree in physics and applied mathematics, summa cum laude, in 1990. She completed her doctorate in 1994 through the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics and Kapitza Institute for Physical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, supervised by Sergei I. Anisimov.
Snezhana Abarzhi was an active researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1994 - 1997. She started working in the US in 1997 as a visiting professor at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and then in 1998 became an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the University of Bayreuth in Germany. In 1999 she took a research position at Stony Brook University. In 2002 she was selected as a recipient of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science research professorship at Osaka University, and then became a senior fellow in the Center for Turbulence Research at Stanford University in the US. In 2005 she was appointed as a research faculty member at the University of Chicago, adding to it in 2006 an associate professorship at the Illinois Institute of Technology. In 2013 she joined Carnegie Mellon University as a professor of physics and mathematics. In 2016 she was appointed professor and chair of applied mathematics at the University of Western Australia, a position she held until circa 2021.
Abarzhi's research has led her to join the Committee on Scientific Publications of the American Physical Society; (2022–2025). Snezhana Abarzhi is an organizer of conferences and programs on far from equilibrium dynamics of interfaces and turbulent mixing and beyond.Doctrow, Brian (19 August 2019). "Interfaces and Mixing. PNAS Science Sessions Podcast". In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA. ISSN 1091-6490."Turbulent Mixing and Beyond", 2007. In Scientific Program and International Conferences "Turbulent Mixing and Beyond"."Turbulent Mixing and Beyond ICTP's conference on non-equilibrium turbulent processes attracts multidisciplinary, international audience", 4 August 2009. In the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics."Interfaces and Mixing in Fluids, Plasmas, and Materials", 23–26 October 2023. In the University of California at Santa Barbara, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, Exploration Conference."Conservation Laws and Boundary Value Problems in far from Equilibrium Dynamics", 08 January 2025. In the 2025 Joint Mathematics Meeting, the American Mathematical Society Special Session.
Recognition In 2020 Abarzhi was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) following a nomination from the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics, "for deep and abiding work on the Rayleigh-Taylor and related instabilities, and for sustained leadership in that community"."Top UWA physicist elected to prestigious professional society". In the University of Western Australia, 08 October 2020, retrieved 6 November 2020.
Selected publications
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