There is a significant knowledge gap between fundamental scientific breakthroughs in multiphase flows and their use in technology development and process optimization. This has led to inefficient technologies and over-design in industry, as well as the lack of technically informed governmental policy on safety and regulation. In part, this is due to the multiscale nature of the problem and the need for highly specialized training in domain-specific areas to perform world-class research in each of these scales. Since individual researchers can lead only in domain-specific areas of this multiscale problem, the rate of knowledge transfer from academia to industry is exceedingly slow. This points to the need for an interactive, interdisciplinary approach involving multiple investigators with complementary skill-sets who can comprehensively address the challenges of understanding, simulating, and manipulating complex multiphase flows that underlie important industrial and societal problems. CoMFRE was established to fill this need.