Salem’s areas of research include applied math, quantitative biology and soft matter physics. His research applies methods from differential geometry to study growth form and function of organisms. This involves developing morphometric methods to quantify shape changes over developmental and evolutionary timescales and morphogenetic models to study growing biological structures.

Gaurav’s areas of research include mechanical metamaterials, kirigami, origami, and rheology.

Alex is using optimal control theory from engineering to design optimal drug treatment regimes for Alzheimer’s disease. He is also investigating the applicability of Lie symmetry techniques to problems of biological self-assembly.

Fabio is interested in the physical and neuromechanical principles that govern animal movement and locomotion. He investigates these principles by developing dynamical and control-theoretic models, as well as biomimetic robot experiments. Among other things, his recent work examines the dynamics of bipedal locomotion in little skates, and he is currently studying self-organized behavior in ants and the optimal control of octopus arm movements.

Vidya’s research interests include geometric and optimal control theory and evolutionary game theory, with applications in collective behaviour, cognition, and the control of active matter.

Ganga is currently working on designing advanced functional materials and robotics inspired by collective social behavior.

Mattia develops data-driven methods and mathematical models to study complex biological and physical systems, mostly defined through experimental dynamical data sets. These systems are typically nonlinear, multi-scale and chaotic, and thus require new ideas to 1) best uncover the underlying causal mechanisms from their footprint on data, and 2) predict their behavior from the essential driving processes.

Aditi’s areas of research include: pattern formation, instabilities in solids and fluids, and mechanics in morphogenesis.

Anna uses Molecular Dynamics simulations, polymer theory and differential geometry to study knots and entanglement in soft- and biological matter. Her aim is to characterize and control disorder in topological amorphous solids.

Anupam’s research interest lies in developmental biophysics, specifically working in the area of embryogenesis, tissue morphogenesis and complex fluids.

Thomas’s research focuses on the development of theoretical tools to understand biological aggregation processes across multiple scales. Topics of interest include theory of protein aggregation, liquid-liquid phase separation and the mechanics of filamentous aggregates. He also applies the resulting methods to a range of problems beyond biological aggregation, including control theory, aging and cancer dynamics.

Sifan is focusing on mathematical modeling and scientific computing to investigate the morphogenesis and pattern formation in soft matter, such as surface wrinkling, growth-induced buckling, phase separation and chemo-mechanical oscillation and waves in biological tissues.

Suraj’s research interests are broadly in statistical mechanics, condensed matter and biophysics. His current work focuses on various aspects of active matter, including phase separation, topological phenomena and tissue morphogenesis, along with questions of control and optimal transport of continuous media. He also studies the statistics and mechanics of slender elastic bodies and associated instabilities. Suraj is also interested in problems involving the thermodynamic consequences of adaptation and control in biophysical navigatio

Nicky uses simulations based on the Cosserat theory of elastic rods to model biology- and engineering-motivated systems of interacting soft filaments, and employs knot theory methods to understand the systems on a fundamental level and predict their behavior in circumstances where standard physics approaches often prove intractable. He spends much of his time developing and implementing algorithms that combine and calculate useful knot theory quantities for collections of three-dimensional strings.

Siheng’s research interest lies in the interface between mathematical and computational modeling in a wide variety of physical and biological systems, with specific focus on network-based models. Applications include designing origami/kirigami materials and motion control in robotics.

Ian is working on problems in origami/kirigami. He is trying to understand the mechanics and design of origami structures so that they can be useful in the design of machines.

Jordan is broadly interested in bioinspired engineering and design. Her thesis work focuses upon the building behavior of the North American beaver. She explores this through experimental work in log jams and in field work observing beaver build.

Lauren is interested in mechanical bases of pattern formation and recognition, particularly in systems dominated by geometric effects.

Irina is interested in interdisciplinary projects on optimization, signal processing, robotics, and acoustics. After studying trajectory planning algorithms for the first two years of her PhD, she now works on the application of elastic functional data analysis and optimal transport to biological problems, including analysis of gait and of morphology. She is also very interested in the use of computational methods to assist sustainability and wildlife conservation; and particularly in the characterization and classification of acoustic signals.

Jeremy is working on experimental fluid mechanics in confined geometries.