D. Zeb Rocklin

D. Zeb Rocklin

Zeb Rocklin

Assistant Professor, School of Physics
IMS Initiative Lead, Mechanical Metamaterials

I have a broad range of interests in soft condensed matter physics and adjacent fields like statistical physics, physics of living systems and hard condensed matter. My particular focus is on the relationship between the geometric structure of a system and its mechanical response. Both biological and engineered systems often have some structure, such as networks of struts, particles jammed together or patterns of creases in thin sheets, that grant them flexibility and strength with a minimum of weight. These structures can lead to subtle and surprising mechanical response:

zeb.rocklin@physics.gatech.edu

404.385.8104

Research Website

University, College, and School/Department
Additional Research:
Condensed matter physics, statistical physics, physics of living systems, and hard condensed matter.

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Chandra Raman

Chandra Raman

Chandra Raman

Professor, School of Physics
Initiative Lead, Georgia Tech Quantum Alliance

The Raman Group has two main thrusts.  The team utilizes sophisticated tools to cool atoms to temperatures less than one millionth of a degree above absolute zero. Using these tools, they explore topics ranging from superfluidity in Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) to quantum antiferromagnetism in a spinor condensate.  In another effort the team partners with engineers to build cutting edge atomic quantum sensors on-chip that can one day be mass-produced.

craman@gatech.edu

404.894.9062

Office Location:
Howey N04

Raman Lab at Georgia Tech

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    University, College, and School/Department
    Research Focus Areas:
    • Computational Materials Science
    • Electronic Materials
    • Miniaturization & Integration
    • Nanomaterials
    • Optics & Photonics
    • Quantum Computing
    • Quantum Computing and Systems
    • Thermal Systems
    Additional Research:
    Spinor Bose-Einstein Condensates

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    Andrew Zangwill

    Andrew Zangwill

    Andrew Zangwill

    Professor, School of Physics

    Professor Zangwill earned a B.S. in Physics at Carnegie-Mellon University in 1976. His 1981 Ph.D. in Physics at the University of Pennsylvania introduced the time-dependent density functional method. 

    He worked at Brookhaven National Laboratory and the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn from 1981-1985 before taking up his present position at the Georgia Institute of Technology. 

    He was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1997 for theoretical studies of epitaxial crystal growth. 

    He is the author of the monograph Physics at Surfaces (1988) and the graduate textbook Modern Electrodynamics (2013). In 2013, he began publishing scholarly work on the history of condensed matter physics.

    andrew.zangwill@physics.gatech.edu

    404.894.7333

    Office Location:
    Howey N102

    Modern Electrodynamics

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    University, College, and School/Department
    Research Focus Areas:
    • Electronic Materials
    • Materials and Nanotechnology
    • Quantum Computing
    • Quantum Computing and Systems
    • Semiconductors
    Additional Research:
    ElectrodynamicsEpitaxial GrowthQuantum MaterialsIII-V Semiconductor Devices

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    Phillip First


    Phillip First

    Professor, School of Physics
    Director, Surface, Interface, and Nanostructure Research Group

    A primary goal of Professor First's research is to develop an understanding of solid-state systems at atomic length scales. The main experimental tools in this pursuit are scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and related techniques such as ballistic electron emission microscopy (BEEM). These methods rely on the quantum-mechanical tunnel effect to obtain atomically-resolved maps of the electronic structure of surfaces, clusters, and buried layers.

    phillip.first@physics.gatech.edu

    404.894.0548

    Office Location:
    Howey N018/ S03

    Surface, Interface and Nanostructure Research Group

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    Research Focus Areas:
    • Electronic Materials
    Additional Research:
    Electron microscopy, surfaces and interfaces, graphene, epitaxial growth

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    Itamar Kolvin

    Itamar Kolvin

    Itamar Kolvin

    Assistant Professor, School of Physics

    Itamar Kolvin received his B.Sc. (2007) in Physics and Mathematics and his M.Sc. (2009) from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In 2017, he completed his Ph.D. in Physics under Prof. Jay Fineberg in the Hebrew University. He was a HFSP cross-disciplinary postdoctoral fellow in the Physics Department, University of California, Santa Barbara with Pro. Zvonimir Dogic. His research interests are in the fundamentals of soft matter out-of-equilibrium: assembly, deformation, flow and fracture. Current efforts make use of model systems that are assembled of protein machineries to investigate active and adaptive material mechanics. 

    ikolvin@gatech.edu

    Office Location:
    MoSE 2144

    https://sites.gatech.edu/ikolvinlab/

    University, College, and School/Department
    Research Focus Areas:
    • Aerogels & Hydrogels
    • Biomaterials
    • Molecular, Cellular and Tissue Biomechanics

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    Sabetta Matsumoto

    Sabetta Matsumoto

    Sabetta Matsumoto

    Associate Professor

    Sabetta Matsumoto received her B.A., M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Princeton Center for Theoretical Sciences and in the Applied Mathematics group and Harvard University. She is a professor in the School of Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She uses differential geometry, knot theory, and geometric topology to understand the geometry of materials and their mechanical properties. She is passionate about using textiles, 3D printing, and virtual reality to teach geometry and topology to the public.

    sabetta@gatech.edu

    Matsumoto Lab

    University, College, and School/Department
    Research Focus Areas:
    • Additive manufacturing
    • Sustainable Manufacturing

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    Peter Yunker

    Peter Yunker

    Peter Yunker

    Associate Professor

    Dr. Yunker joined Georgia Tech’s School of Physics in 2014 after finishing his biophysics postdoc at Harvard University & New England Biolabs in 2014. Before that, he earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania in 2012 after earning a B.S. in Physics from Texas A&M University in 2005. He has won the Burstein Prize and the Denenstein Award both from UPenn along with the Eric R. Immel Memorial award for Excellence in Teaching at GT. 

    Peter’s interests are biophysics, soft matter, and golden retrievers.

    peter.yunker@gatech.edu

    404-385-8642

    Office Location:
    Boggs B20

    Website

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    Research Focus Areas:
    • Molecular, Cellular and Tissue Biomechanics
    • Systems Biology
    Additional Research:
    Nonequilibrium systems, densely packed active matter with life and death events, microbial physics, structural mechanics, fracture mechanics, evolution.

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    James Gumbart

    James Gumbart

    James Gumbart

    Associate Professor

    My lab is focused on understanding how proteins and other biological systems function at a molecular level. To probe these systems, we carry out molecular dynamics simulations, modeling biological behavior one atom at a time. The simulations serve as a "computational microscope" that permits glimpses into a cell's inner workings through the application of advanced software and high-powered supercomputers. We are particularly interested in how bacteria utilize unique pathways to synthesize proteins and insert them into both the inner and outer membranes, how they import nutrients across two membranes, and how their cell walls provide shape and mechanical strength.

    gumbart@physics.gatech.edu

    404-385-0797

    Office Location:
    Howey W202

    Website

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    Research Focus Areas:
    • Molecular Evolution
    Additional Research:
    Computational simulations of complex biophysical phenomena involving proteins and other biomolecules.

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    Simon Sponberg

    Simon Sponberg

    Simon Sponberg

    Dunn Family Associate Professor; Physics & Biological Sciences
    Director; Agile Systems Lab

    During his graduate work at UC, Berkeley, Simon sought to uncover general principles of animal locomotion that reveal control strategies underlying the remarkable stability and maneuverability of movement in nature. His work has demonstrated the importance animals’ natural dynamics for maintaining stability in the absence of neural feedback. His research emphasizes the importance of placing neural control in the appropriate dynamical context using mathematical and physical models. He has collaborated with researchers at four other institutions to transfer these principles to the design of the next generation of bio-inspired legged robots. 

    Simon received his Ph.D. in Integrative Biology at UC, Berkeley and has been a Hertz Fellow since 2002. His work has led to fellowships and awards from the National Science Foundation, the University of California, the Woods Hole Marine Biological Institute, the American Physical Society, the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology, and the International Association of Physics Students. He is also currently affiliated the new Center for Interdisciplinary Bio-Inspiration in Education and Research (CIBER) at Berkeley.

    simon.sponberg@physics.gatech.edu

    404.385.4053

    Office Location:
    Howey C205

    Agile Systems Lab

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    Research Focus Areas:
    • Neuroscience
    Additional Research:
    A central challenge for many organisms is the generation of stable, versatile locomotion through irregular, complex environments. Animals have evolved to negotiate almost every environment on this planet. To do this, animals'nervous systems acquire, process and act upon information. Yet their brains must operate through the mechanics of the body's sensors and actuators to both perceive and act upon the environment. Ourresearch investigates howphysics and physiologyenable locomoting animals to achieve the remarkable stability and maneuverability we see in biological systems. Conceptually, this demands combining neuroscience, muscle physiology, and biomechanics with an eye towards revealing mechanism and principle -- an integrative science of biological movement. This emerging field, termedneuromechanics, does for biology what mechatronics, the integration of electrical and mechanical system design, has done for engineering. Namely, it provides a mechanistic context for the electrical (neuro-) and physical (mechanical) determinants of movement in organisms. Weexplore how animals fly and run stably even in the face of repeated perturbations, how the multifuncationality of muscles arises from their physiological properties, and how the tiny brains of insects organize and execute movement.

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    Harold Kim

    Harold Kim

    Harold Kim

    Professor

    harold.kim@physics.gatech.edu

    404-894-0080

    Office Location:
    Boggs B-83

    Website

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    I am interested in understanding (i) how transcription factors find their targets on DNA and activate transcription despite the presence of nucleosomes and (ii) how structural details of trans-activators and cis-elements quantitatively fine-tune gene regulation at the cellular level. The Harold Kim Lab is an experimental biophysics group studying the biophysics of the genome in the School of Physics atGeorgia Institute ofTechnology.A meter-long DNA is tightly packaged into chromosomes inside a micron-wide nucleus of a cell. Therefore, the genetic information is difficult to locate and process. Despite this formidable challenge, cells constantly convert the genetic code into appropriate amounts of proteins in a timely manner based on external signals. This interesting phenomenon is at the core of our research.

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