Condensed and Living Matter Seminars

Upcoming Condensed and Living Matter Seminars



Condensed and Living Matter Seminar: TBA

Johnpierre Paglione (University of Maryland)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory A8


Condensed and Living Matter Seminar: “Fractal patterns in music”

Andrzej Herczyński (Boston College)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory A8

If aesthetic preferences are influenced by the fractal geometry of nature, scaling regularities would be expected in all art forms, including music. While a variety of statistical tools have been proposed to analyze…



Condensed and Living Matter Seminar: Active phases and phase transitions drive pattern formation in motile populations of bacteria.

Josh Shaevitz (Princeton)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory A8

The soil dwelling bacterium Myxococcus xanthus is an amazing organism that uses collective motility to hunt in giant packs when near prey and to form beautiful and protective…



Condensed and Living Matter Seminar: "TBA"

Michael McGuire
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory A8


Condensed and Living Matter Seminar: Shot noise in a strange metal

Doug Natelson (Rice University)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory A8

Strange metal behavior has been observed in materials ranging from high-temperature superconductors to heavy fermion metals. In conventional metals, current is carried by quasiparticles; although it has been…

Past Condensed and Living Matter Seminars



Condensed and Living Matter Seminar: Bacterial Swarm, An Active Matter State Enriched by Interfacial Fluid Dynamics

Jay Tang (Brown University)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory A8

Soft matter, a term not used often a few decades ago, has become a recognized branch of physics studied by researchers worldwide from multiple disciplines. My own random walk in this field started with experiments on…



Condensed and Living Matter Seminar: Search and Response Mechanisms in Active Soft Matter

Alireza Abbaspourrad (Cornell University)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory A8

Efficient migration in complex environments is crucial for biological systems that search for a target across various length scales. Microswimmers’ motion, such as bacterial chemotaxis in complex environments, and…



Condensed and Living Matter Seminar: Van der Waals magnets and antiferromagnets interacting with electron spins

Dan Ralph (Cornell University)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory A8

This talk will discuss two projects.  The first concerns topological insulator/magnet samples made by mechanical stacking of exfoliated van der Waals flakes.  The proximity interaction of the…



Condensed and Living Matter Seminar: "Robots that evolve on demand"

Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio (Yale)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory A8

Abstract: Soft robots have the potential to adapt their morphology and behavioral control policy to changing tasks and environments. Inspired by the dynamic plasticity of living materials and general adaptability of…



Condensed and Living Matter Seminar: Multicellular is different: the biophysical basis of multicellular growth

Peter Yunker (Georgia Tech)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory A8

Cells often live in groups, such as surface attached communities of unrelated bacteria (e.g., biofilms) to multicellular organisms (e.g., animals). Living in groups provides cells with a range of…