The interaction between an advancing solidification front and a micron-size particle is an inherently multiscale heat and mass transport problem. Transport at the micro-scale (i.e. the scale of the particle dimension) couples with intermolecular interactions and lubrication forces in a thin layer of melt between the particle and the front to determine the overall dynamics of the interaction. A multiscale model is developed to simulate such front-particle interactions. The solution to the lubrication equations in the melt layer is coupled to the solution of the Navier-Stokes equations for the overall particle-front system. Techniques are developed for coupling the dynamics at the two disparate scales at a common "matching plane". All interfaces are represented and tracked using the level-set approach. A sharp-interface technique is employed for solution of the governing equations in the resulting moving boundary problem. Validation of the coupling strategy and results for the particle-front interaction phenomenon with the multiscale approach are presented. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.