2019 Heilmeier Lecture: “Cell-Matrix Interactions in Cancer and Fibrosis: Multiscale Chemo-Mechanical Models”

Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Cell invasion into the surrounding matrix from nonvascularized primary tumors is the main mechanism by which cancer cells migrate to nearby blood vessels and metastasize to eventually form secondary tumors. This process is mediated by an intricate coupling between intracellular forces and extracellular forces that depend on the stiffness of the surrounding stroma and the […]

CIS Seminar: ” Deep Learning for Network Biomedicine”

Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Abstract: Large datasets are being generated that can transform biology and medicine. New machine learning methods are necessary to unlock these data and open doors for scientific discoveries. In this talk, I will argue that, in order to advance science, machine learning models should not be trained in the context of one particular dataset. Instead, […]

The Joy of Being Faculty: How I Devised My Research Program

Heilmeier Hall (Room 100), Towne Building 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

This professional development workshop is designed to provide Penn Engineering graduate students and postdocs with a richer understanding of what it is like to pursue a career in academia from those that have navigated the process successfully. Deputy Dean Kathleen J. Stebe (SEAS) will lead this extemporaneous panel discussions with a mix of both tenured […]

MEAM Seminar: “Wrinkles, Spaghetti, and Knots”

Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Buckling, twisting and fracture are ubiquitous phenomena that, despite having been studied for centuries, still pose many interesting conceptual and practical challenges. In this talk, I will summarize recent theoretical and experimental work that aims to understand the role of curvature and torsion in wrinkle pattern selection, fragmentation cascades and knots. First, we will show […]

MEAM/MSE Special Seminar: “Scalable Functional Phase Change Materials for Displays and Photonic Non-von Neumann Computing”

Reading Room, LRSM 3231 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

In electronics, doping silicon results in one of the most versatile functional materials ever employed. The pursuit of such functional materials in the optical domain is an area of great interest in the photonics community. I hope to convince you that whatever route photonics takes, a class of materials known as phase change materials, will […]

PICS Seminar: “Topology, Geometry, and Fracture in Networked Materials: A Tale of Scales”

Raisler Lounge (Room 225), Towne Building 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

The skeleton of many natural and artificial structures may be abstracted as networks of nonlinearly interacting elements. Examples include rubber, gels, soft tissues, and lattice materials. Understanding the multiscale nature of deformation and failure of networked structures hold key for uncovering origins of fragility in many complex systems including biological tissues and enables designing novel […]