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

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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

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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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    Daniel Goldman

    Daniel Goldman

    Daniel Goldman

    Dunn Family Professor; School of Physics
    Director; Complex Rheology And Biomechanics (CRAB) Lab

    My research integrates my work in complex fluids and granular media and the biomechanics of locomotion of organisms and robots to address problems in nonequilibrium systems that involve interaction of matter with complex media. For example, how do organisms like lizards, crabs, and cockroaches cope with locomotion on complex terrestrial substrates (e.g. sand, bark, leaves, and grass). I seek to discover how biological locomotion on challenging terrain results from the nonlinear, many degree of freedom interaction of the musculoskeletal and nervous systems of organisms with materials with complex physical behavior. The study of novel biological and physical interactions with complex media can lead to the discovery of principles that govern the physics of the media. My approach is to integrate laboratory and field studies of organism biomechanics with systematic laboratory studies of physics of the substrates, as well as to create mathematical and physical (robot) models of both organism and substrate. Discovery of the principles of locomotion on such materials will enhance robot agility on such substrates

    dgoldman3@gatech.edu

    404.894.0993

    Office Location:
    Howey C202

    The Crab Lab

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    Research Focus Areas:
    • Autonomy
    • Molecular, Cellular and Tissue Biomechanics
    • Neuroscience
    • Systems Biology
    Additional Research:

    biomechanics; neuromechanics; granular media; robotics; robophysics


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    Claire Berger

    Claire Berger

    Claire Berger

    Professor of the Practice

    Claire Berger is Director of Research at the French National Center for Scientific Research - Néel Institute working at the Georgia Institute of Technology in W. A. de Heer’s group. She obtained the PhD in Physics from the University of Grenoble, France, with a dissertation on the electronic properties of AlMn quasicrystals. She then moved to a postdoc position at the Centre d’Etudes Atomiques, where she produced and studied amorphous films, and was hired as a researcher at the CNRS ‘s Laboratory for Study of Electronic Properties of Solids (LEPES), in Grenoble. She focused the first part of her carrier on electronic properties of quasicrystalline materials grown and characterized at LEPES. She contributed to the experimental evidence for a metal-insulator transition in these metal- based compounds. 

    At Georgia Tech, her current scientific interests are primarily nanoscience and electronic property of graphene-based systems. She co-authored the first article demonstrating the two dimensional properties of graphene and proposing graphene for electronics, and together with Walt de Heer and Phil First she co-authored the first patent for graphene electronics (2003). 

    She is co-author of more than 200 publications in international journals, has a citation index of 10,880 and an H index of 41.

    cb299@gatech.edu

    (404) 385-1685

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    Walter de Heer

    Walter de Heer

    Walter de Heer

    Regents' Professor

    Walter Alexander “Walt” de Heer is a Dutch physicist and nanoscience researcher known for discoveries in the electronic shell structure of metal clusters, magnetism in transition metal clusters, field emission and ballistic conduction in carbon nanotubes, and graphene-based electronics.

    De Heer earned a doctoral degree in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1986 under the supervision of Walter D. Knight. He worked at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland from 1987 to 1997, and is currently a Regents' Professor of Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He directs the Epitaxial Graphene Laboratory in the School of Physics and leads the Epitaxial Graphene Interdisciplinary Research Group at the Georgia Tech Materials Research Science and Engineering Center.

    eheer@physics.gatech.edu

    (404) 894-7879

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    Research Focus Areas:
    • Electronic Materials
    • Energy Utilization and Conservation
    Additional Research:

    Electronics; Carbon Nanotubes; Epitaxial Growth; Graphene; Nanomaterials; quantum materials


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    Martin Mourigal

    Martin Mourigal

    Martin Mourigal

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

    Martin Mourigal received the B.S in Materials from Ecole des Mines de Nancy in 2004. He later received his M.S. and Ph.D. in physics from Ecole Polytechnique Federale (EPFL) located in Lausanne, Switzerland in 2007 and 2011, respectively. He was also a postdoctoral research fellow in John Hopkins University from 2011 until 2014. He joined Georgia Tech in 2015 and is currently an assistant professor in the School of Physics. Mourigal's lab focuses on the study of collective electronic and magnetic phenomena in quantum materials. His research exploits the unique strengths of neutron and X-ray scattering to probe the organization and the dynamics of matter at the nanoscale.In addition to his own lab research, Mourigal is the co-director of the Georgia Tech Quantum Alliance, a university wide program that will work towards solving problems in optimization, cryptography, and artificial intelligence. Mourigal was awarded the Cullen Peck Faculty Scholar Award from Georgia Tech in 2019. He was also awarded the National Science Foundation CAREER Award for excellence as a young educator and researcher in 2018.

    mourigal@gatech.edu

    404.385.5669

    Office Location:
    Howey C202

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    Research Focus Areas:
    • Miniaturization & Integration
    • Quantum Computing
    • Use & Conservation
    Additional Research:

    Quantum Materials, Micro and Nanomechanics, Ferroelectronic Materials, Materials Data Sciences, Electronics


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    Zhigang Jiang

    Zhigang Jiang

    Zhigang Jiang

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

    Zhigang Jiang received his B.S. in physics in 1999 from Beijing University and his Ph.D. in 2005 from Northwestern University. He was also a postdoctoral research associate at Columbia University jointly with Princeton University and NHMFL from 2005 till 2008. Jiang is interested in the quantum transport and infrared optical properties of low dimensional condensed matter systems. The current ongoing projects include: (1) infrared spectroscopy study of graphene and topological insulators, (2) spin transport in graphene devices, and (3) Andreev reflection spectroscopy of candidate topological superconductors.

    zhigang.jiang@physics.gatech.edu

    404.385.3906

    Office Location:
    Boggs B-18

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    Research Focus Areas:
    • Electronic Materials
    • Energy Utilization and Conservation
    • Nanomaterials
    • Optics & Photonics
    Additional Research:

    quantum materials; nanoelectronics; Graphene; Epitaxial Growth


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