This will be a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Wu and Chen and virtual attendance on Zoom. ABSTRACT Atomic systems (molecules, crystals, proteins, etc.) are naturally represented by a set of coordinates in 3D space labeled by atom type. This poses a challenge for machine learning due to the sensitivity of coordinates to 3D […]
When a superhydrophobic (SH) textured surface is immersed in water it traps a thin shiny layer of air within the texture that is known as a plastron. Contact line pinning stabilizes this Cassie-Baxter state and the patches of air trapped in the texture can act as shear-free regions that locally lower the frictional dissipation. Recent […]
Fluorinated polymers offer a plethora of unique and sometimes perplexing properties. One of the most interesting is the ability for specific types of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) to undergo room-temperature, sheer-induced, structural transformations leading “unwinding” of crystallites and the formation of nano-scale fibers. This process is commonly referred to as “fibrillation”. The material properties required for this […]
Abstract: Biology is characterized by a diversity of phenotypes and functions that outpace the limited molecular diversity encoded in genomes. How this is achieved is a fundamental and enduring mystery of the cell. It is clear that networks defining how biological molecules interact can drive diverse and complex phenotypes, but the intermolecular interactions or edges […]
Mineralized tissues are paradigmatic hierarchical materials that reap synergy from structural and compositional gradients at multiple length scales in ways that are challenging to reproduce by conventional means. My laboratory studies the formation, functional properties, and degradation of mineralized tissues. We use model systems ranging from single crystalline endoskeletal elements deposited by single cells to […]
This will be a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Wu and Chen and virtual attendance on Zoom. ABSTRACT Living materials represent a new frontier in engineering materials for robotic systems, incorporating biological living cells and synthetic materials into their design. These bio-hybrid robots are dynamic and intelligent, potentially harnessing living matter’s capabilities, such as […]