Research Overview
My goal is to develop strategies for steering and designing living systems. Biology effortlessly self-organizes through entwined chemomechanical and reaction-diffusion processes, enabling multi-time and lengthscale feats such as sensing environmental queues, cell division, and morphogenesis.
Nonlinear and interdependent, unraveling the biological processes enabling these dynamics is a cross-disciplinary endeavor. To tackle these challenges, I employ computational tools and concepts from non-equilibrium soft-condensed matter physics, fluid dynamics, nonlinear dynamics, and control theory.
Driven by experimental collaborations, I explore these themes through several physical systems, including 1) light-activated microtubule-kinesin nematics (Fraden, Dogic, Hagan, and Grover),
2) actin polymerization-driven beads (Duclos and Hagan), 3) reconstituted minD/E (Duclos and Touboul), and 4) Belousov-Zhabotinsky oscillators (Fraden).
Funding:
1. Department of Energy, Basic Energy Sciences, Biomolecular Materials DE-SC0022280 (role: Co-I, PI Grover at UN-L)
2. Brandeis University NSF MRSEC DMR-2011846
