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Active gels are a class of biologically-relevant material containing embedded agents that spontaneously generate forces acting on a sparse filament network. In vitro experiments of protein filaments and molecular motors have revealed a…
A collection of thin structures buckle, bend, and bump into each-other when confined. This contact can lead to the formation of patterns: hair will self-organize in curls; DNA strands will layer into cell nuclei; paper, when crumpled, will…
Exploiting elastic instability in thin films has proven a robust method for creating complex patterns and structures across a wide range of lengthscales. Even the simplest of systems, an elastic membrane with a lattice of pores, under…
The large-scale collective behavior of biological systems can be characterized by macroscopic transport, which arises from the non-equilibrium microscopic interactions among individual constituents. A prominent example is the formation of…
The sessile microbial communities known as biofilms exhibit varying architectures as environmental factors are varied, which for immersed biofilms includes the shear rate of the surrounding flow. Here we modify an established agent-based…
Understanding the mechanical instabilities of two-dimensional membranes has strong connection to the subjects of structure instabilities, morphology control and materials failures. In this work, we investigate the plastic mechanism…
The field of active matter explores the behaviors of self propelled agents out of equilibrium, with active suspensions, such as swimming bacteria in solutions, serving as impactful models. These systems exhibit spatio-temporal patterns akin…
Two-dimensional shape-morphing networks are common in biological systems and have garnered attention due to their nontrivial physical properties that emanate from their cellular nature. Here, we present the fabrication and characterization…
There has been increasing experimental evidence of non-affine elastic deformation mechanisms in biological soft tissues. These observations call for novel constitutive models which are able to describe the dominant underlying…
We report on experiments to measure the temporal and spatial evolution of packing arrangements of anisotropic and weakly confined granular material, using high-resolution $\gamma$-ray adsorption. In these experiments, the particle…
Patterns are quotidian in nature. Distinct multiscale patterns are generally a consequence of nonequilibrium dynamical processes associated with mechanical or hydrodynamic instabilities. In this thesis, I report experimental investigations…
Biofilm infections on medical implants are difficult to eradicate because insufficient nutrient availability promotes antibiotic-tolerant persister cells that survive treatment and reseed growth. Existing mathematical models usually omit…
Bacteria are ubiquitous in our daily lives, either as motile planktonic cells or as immobilized surface-attached biofilms. These different phenotypic states play key roles in agriculture, environment, industry, and medicine; hence, it is…
Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain the spontaneous generation of self-organized patterns, hypothesised to play a role in the formation of many of the magnificent patterns observed in Nature. In several cases of interest, the…
One of the most challenging problems in microbiology is to understand how a small fraction of microbes that resists killing by antibiotics can emerge in a population of genetically identical cells, the phenomenon known as persistence or…
Models based on surfactant driven instabilities have been employed to describe pattern formation by swarming bacteria. However, by definition, such models cannot account for the effect of bacterial sensing and decision making. Here we…
A bacterial biofilm is an aggregate of micro-organisms growing fixed onto a solid surface, rather than floating freely in a liquid. Biofilms play a major role in various practical situations such as surgical infections and water treatment.…
Collective dynamics in proliferating anisotropic particle systems arise from an interplay between growth, division, and mechanical interactions, often mediated by particle shape. In classical models of prolate, rod-like growth, flow-induced…
We studied phase separation in a particle interacting system under a large drive along x. We here identify the basic growth mechanisms, and demonstrate time self-similarity, finite-size scaling, as well as other interesting features of both…
Molecular self-assembly plays a very important role in various aspects of technology as well as in biological systems. Governed by the covalent, hydrogen or van der Waals interactions - self-assembly of alike molecules results in a large…