Theoretical study of the dynamics of soft and biological matter

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My group investigates the interplay between structure and dynamics in soft materials, with a focus on polymeric and biological materials. We use a combination of sophisticated analytical methods and high-performance computing to tackle problems in this multidisciplinary environment. The structure-dynamics relationship in soft and biological materials is an exciting and rich topic for theoretical and experimental study, with a diverse set of challenging problems. For example, there is an ongoing, world-wide effort to investigate block copolymers as structural templates for nanolithography, and for the production of ordered arrays of metallic nano-dots and nano-wires. These templates hold the promise of shrinking microelectronic circuits to the 10 nm scale, below that accessible to traditional photolithography. In such applications, when processing these materials it is important to understand how long it takes structures to self-assemble. A second aspect of this proposal focuses on the dynamics and pattern formation in of colonies of active rod-like bacteria, which form a new class of dynamic, active matter. Finally propose to study entanglements in polymer melts, a long-standing, grand challenge problem. Understanding the dynamics of soft materials at a quantitative level through the development and extension of the methods of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics is my long-term goal.