Soft matter and biological physics: Our group study the structure, phase behavior and dynamics of systems such as drops, polymer solutions, polymer gels, colloidal suspensions, bacterial suspensions, and animal cells, using the approaches of statistical thermodynamics. Through our interactions with experimental groups, the theory is applied to problems of wetting dynamics, microphase separation, elasticity of polymer gels, self-assembly in active suspensions, mechanical interactions between cells and between cells and their extracellular matrix, mechanical aspects of tissue morphogenesis etc.

Depending on the interests of the applicant the project could be mainly theoretical or combination of numerical simulations with analytical works; and would focus on one of the following two distinct yet related research areas:

The first concerns "active" soft matter, maintained far from equilibrium by internal energy sources, e.g., swarms of self-propelled colloidal particles or microbes. The main aim is to pursue a physical understanding of active dynamics, hydrodynamic interactions, and rheology taking place in the complex environments that are relevant to biological suspensions.

The second concerns the mechanical aspects of animal cells & tissues. This project belongs to the emerging research field -- mechanobiology at the interface of biology and engineering, which aims to understand how physical forces and changes in the mechanical properties of cells and tissues contribute to development, cell differentiation, physiology, and disease. Our group focuses on the mechanical (particularly elastic) interactions between cells and their extracellular matrix, matrix-mediated cell-cell interactions, self-organization (say, morphogenesis) of cellular assemblies like cell arrays and cellular mono- and multiple-layers etc.