Faculty

The Brandeis MRSEC is composed of faculty, staff, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and undergraduate students.

MRSEC Primary Participants

Aparna Baskaran
Aparna Baskaran
PI
Associate Professor of Physics • Brandeis University
781-736-2866 Abelson 306

Areas of Expertise: Nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, biophysics. Also see Baskaran Group.

Alexandre Bisson
Alexandre Bisson
IRG2 Seed: Mechanoresponsive Systems from Archaea
Assistant Professor of Biology • Brandeis University
781-736-4923 Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences Research Center 519

Area of Expertise: Cellular Organization and Behavior in the Archaea domain of life.

Niels Bradshaw
Niels Bradshaw
IRG1, IRG2 Seed: Mechanoresponsive Systems from Archaea
Assistant Professor of Biochemistry
781-736-2309 Kosow-Wolfson-Rosensweig Building, 206

Areas of expertise: Regulation of Protein Phosphatases and the Evolution of Cellular Signaling

Bulbul Chakraborty
Bulbul Chakraborty
IRG2
Enid and Nate Ancell Professor of Physics • Brandeis University
781-736-2843 Abelson 345/346

Areas of Expertise: Condensed matter theory, especially systems far from equilibrium; glassy dynamics in supercooled liquids; granular media and the jamming of granular flows; modeling the dynamical instability in microtubules.

Zvonimir Dogic
Zvonimir Dogic
IRG2
UCSB, Research Associate Professor of physics • Brandeis University

Areas of Expertise: Complex fluids and biological physics; understanding and controlling the self-assembly of matter on a colloidal length scale; assembly, phase transitions and dynamics of colloidal systems under nonequilibrium conditions.

Guillaume Duclos
Guillaume Duclos
IRG2
Assistant Professor of Physics • Brandeis University
Abelson 222

Areas of Expertise: Complex fluids, soft condensed matter, biological physics, active matter, physics of multicellular tissues.

Thomas Fai
Thomas Fai
IRG2
Assistant Professor of Mathematics • Brandeis University
781-736-3064 Goldsmith 208

Areas of expertise: scientific computing, fluid dynamics, and mathematical biology

Seth Fraden
Seth Fraden
IRG1, IRG2
Professor of Physics • Brandeis University
781-736-2888 Abelson 214

Areas of Expertise: Complex fluids; interparticle interactions and phase transitions in colloidal suspensions; entropy driven disorder-to-order transitions; physics of protein crystallization and the development of microfluidic-based, high-throughout crystallization devices.

Bruce Goode, Biology faculty member, Brandeis University
Bruce Goode
IRG2
Professor of Biology • Brandeis University
781-736-2464 Rosenstiel 532

Areas of Expertise: Cell biology and biochemistry of the cytoskeleton.

Greg Grason
Greg Grason
IRG1
Professor of Polymer Science and Engineering • UMass Amherst

Areas of Expertise: Soft matter theory; self-assembly in soft matter and polymers; filamentous matter; geometrically-frustrated assembly; hierarchical block copolymer ordering.

Michael Hagan
Michael Hagan
IRG1 Co-Leader, IRG2
Professor of Physics and of Quantitative Biology • Brandeis University
781-736-2845 Abelson 350

Areas of Expertise: Application of statistical mechanics, modern computational techniques, and theory to problems in biology and condensed matter physics; assembly of viral capsids and other large protein complexes; pattern formation in collections of internally driven particles; effects of molecular chirality on large-scale structure.

Grace Han, Chemistry faculty member, Brandeis University
Grace Han
IRG1 Seed: Optically-Controlled Self-Limiting Assembly for DNA Origami
Assistant Professor of Chemistry • Landsman Career Development Chair in the Sciences, Brandeis University
781-736-2576 Edison-Lecks 307

Areas of Expertise: Organic synthesis of dynamic molecules and polymers for creating interactive material systems. Solid-state application of soft materials for energy conversion, storage, and optoelectronics. Functionalization of 2D materials (graphene, transition metal dichalcogenides, etc.) using organic and inorganic synthetic methods.

Ryan Hayward
Ryan Hayward
IRG1
Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering • University of Colorado Boulder

Areas of Expertise: Mechanics of stimuli-responsive and active soft materials; self-assembly of nanoscale structures in multi-component materials.

Pengyu Hong
Pengyu Hong
IRG2
Professor, Computer Science Affiliation: International Business School • Brandeis University
781-736-2729 Volen National Center for Complex Systems, 135

Areas of expertise: Computer science, FinTech, machine learning, image processing, bioinformatics, biomedical informatics, intelligent education.

Jané Kondev
Jané Kondev
IRG2
William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Physics • Brandeis University
781-736-2812 Abelson 301

Areas of Expertise: Condensed matter theory and quantitative biology; application of condensed matter physics models to problems in molecular and cell biology such as regulation of gene expression and chromosome structure.

Thomas Powers
Thomas Powers
IRG2
Professor of Engineering • Professor of Physics, Brown University
401-863-2868 Brown University

Areas of Expertise: Physics of soft matter, molecular and cellular biomechanics, and nonlinear dynamics.

Avital Rodal faculty image
Avital Rodal
IRG1
Associate Professor of Biology • Brandeis University
781-736-2459 Rosenstiel 528

Areas of Expertise: Neuronal membrane traffic and synapse morphology; dissection of multi-protein machines that drive lipid deformation at intracellular compartments; endosomal membrane traffic in neurons.

W. Benjamin Rogers
W. Benjamin Rogers
IRG1 Co-Leader
Assistant Professor of Physics • Brandeis University
781-736-2857 Abelson 221

Areas of Expertise: Complex fluids and biological physics; programmable self-assembly of soft materials; colloidal interactions and phase transitions; DNA nanotechnology; self-organization of active matter; optical trapping and single-molecule science.

Bing Xu, Brandeis University faculty member
Bing Xu
IRG1
Professor of Chemistry • Brandeis University
781-736-5201 Edison-Lecks 320

Areas of Expertise: Materials chemistry; biomaterials; polymer chemistry and surface chemistry; synthesis and fabrication of functional molecular nanomaterials; new molecular materials and nanomaterials for exploration in biomedicine (e.g., molecular drug delivery, cancer therapy, biomedical diagnostics and biomimetics) and other fundamental problems in nanoscience and biological science.

Dr. Hannah Yevick
Hannah Yevick
Assistant Professor of Physics and Biology

Areas of Expertise: Tissue mechanics, biological physics

MRSEC Primary International Participants

Hendrik Dietz
Hendrik Dietz
IRG1
Full Professor of Biophysics • Technische Universität München
+49 (89) 289-11615

Areas of Expertise: Biomolecular nanotechnology.

Secondary Participants

Andreas Bausch
Andreas Bausch
IRG2
Full Professor of Cellular Biophysics, Technical University of Munich
+49 (89) 289-12480

Areas of Expertise: Cellular biophysics; identification and physical characterization of new biomimetic materials.

Daniel Blair
Daniel Blair
IRG2
Associate Professor of Physics, Georgetown University
202-687-5985

Area of Expertise: Soft condensed matter physics.

Jerald Dumas
Jerald Dumas
PREM
Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, Dean of Graduate College, Hampton University
Jonathan Doye
Jonathan Doye
IRG1
Professor of Theoretical Chemistry, University of Oxford
Demetris Geddis
Demetris Geddis
PREM
Associate Professor, Assistant Dean and Dept. Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Hampton University
Kesete Ghebreyessus
Kesete Ghebreyessus
PREM
Associate Professor of Chemistry, Hampton University
Sriram Ramaswamy
Sriram Ramaswamy
IRG2
Professor of Physics • Indian Institute of Science
+91 (40) 2419-5003 Tata Inst. Fund. Research, India

Areas of Expertise: Nonequilibrium, soft-matter and biological physics.

Jennifer Ross
Jennifer Ross
IRG2
Professor of Physics, Syracuse University

Areas of Expertise: Biophysics; active matter; biomaterials; microtubules; microtubule-associated proteins and enzymes; motor proteins; enzymes; binding kinetics; single molecule imaging; total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy.

Christian Santangelo
Christian Santangelo
IRG1
Professor of Physics, Syracuse University

Areas of Expertise: Soft condensed matter theory.

Katherine Shulenberger
Katherine Shulenberger
PREM Collaborator
781-736-2522 Shapiro Science Center 3-06

Area of Expertise: Development of optical microscopy techniques to research fundamental nanocrystal properties in device relevant environments.

Mark Stevens
IRG1
Sandia National Labs