Positions:
- Director, Working Group on Environmental and Biological Fluid Dynamics (2023-)
- Assistant Professor, Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania (2021-)
- Postdoctoral Fellow, Lab of Manu Prakash, Stanford University (2017-2020)
- PhD Student, Group of Julia Yeomans FRS, Oxford University (2012-2017)
Honours & Awards (selection):
- Undergraduate Research Mentorship Award, UPenn (2025)
- New Investigator Award, Charles E. Kaufman Foundation (2023)
- Klein Family Social Justice Award, UPenn (2022)
- Charles Kittel Award, American Physical Society (APS) (2019)
- International Research Travel Award, American Physical Society (APS) (2019)
- Cross-Disciplinary Fellow, Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) (2017-2020)
- Sir Sam Edwards PhD Thesis Prize, UK Institute of Physics (IoP) (2016)
- 30 under 30, Scientific American (2012)
- Best overall undergraduate, UCL Department of Physics & Astronomy (2012)
- Faculty Medal, University College London (2012)
Professional Responsibilities:
- Chair, Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP) at UPenn (January 2024)
- Chair, GRS/GRC Conference on Complex Active and Adaptive Material Systems (January 2023)
- Guest Editor, Physics of Fluids (2021)
- Peer reviewer of ~60 articles for ~20 scientific journals
- Editor in Chief (2014-2016), and Editor (2012-2016), The New Collection, New College Oxford
Recent media coverage:
- USA Today, by Elizabeth Weise, “Scientists release instructions for how to make a perfect cup of coffee”, on the front page (9 Apr 2025)
- Radio New Zealand, by Serena Solomon, and online video experiment by baristas Elaine and Zuyi Woon, “New optimal coffee-making method according to science” (9 Apr 2025)
- Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, radio interview with Nil Köksal and Chris Howden on the show “As it Happens” (8 Apr 2025)
- The Guardian, by Nicola Davis, “Secret to stronger pour-over coffee with no extra beans unlocked by scientists”, published online and in print (8 Apr 2025)
- Austria National TV news (Österreichischer Rundfunk), with Kristina Singer and Radio interview with Robert Czepel, “Die optimale Technik für starken Filterkaffee” (8 Apr 2025)
- New Scientist (UK), by Matthew Sparkes, “How to make great coffee with fewer beans according to science”, published online and in print (8 Apr 2025)
- Popular Science, by Andrew Paul, “How to brew the best pour-over coffee, according to science” (8 Apr 2025)
- Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, by Piotr Heller, “Kaffee zu schwach? Physiker haben Tipps”, in German, published online and in print (8 Apr 2025)
Teaching certificate, Stanford University (2019)
DPhil, University of Oxford (2017)
MSci, BSc, University College London (2012)
The Mathijssen lab is interested in exploring the physics of life: we combine experimental and theoretical techniques across the disciplines of physics and biology.
Our main goals are to unravel the physics of pathogens, to design biomedical materials, and understand the collective functionality of living systems (out of equilibrium). To solve these multi-scale problems we use methods from microbiology, fluid mechanics, omics, statistical physics, microscopy and information theory. Recent themes include ultra-fast biology and hydrodynamic communication (Nature 2019), pathogen clearance in the airways (Nature Physics 2020), bacterial contamination dynamics (Nature Communications 2019), and particle delivery technologies (Nature Machine Intelligence, 2022).
This research is both fundamental in nature (e.g. How can an intelligent system arise from the collective dynamics of its basic components?) and directly applied to our society (e.g. What is the probability of SARS-CoV-2 transmission within a food supply chain?). Our enthusiasm is driven by curiosity and the need for solutions that connect science with the challenges of the world we live in. Please get in touch if you would like to join our team!
Our group is part of the Centre for Soft and Living Matter at UPenn, an interdisciplinary center that brings together ~60 faculty from over 10 departments across the Penn campus.
- Mathijssen AJTM, Culver J, Bhamla MS, Prakash M, “Collective intercellular communication through ultra-fast hydrodynamic trigger waves,” Nature 571: 560 (2019)
- Ramirez-San Juan GR, Mathijssen AJTM, He M, Jan L, Marshall W, Prakash M, “Multi-scale spatial heterogeneity enhances particle clearance in airway ciliary arrays”, Nature Physics (2020)
- Torres-Maldonado et al., "Enhancement of bacterial rheotaxis in non-Newtonian fluids", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121 (50) e2417614121 (2024)
All our publications can be downloaded for free on the lab website.