Cell proliferation

As cells grow and divide, they experience stress due to mechanical interactions with boundaries or other cells. This stress can reduce an individual cell's growth rate, which in turn affects the stress it applies on its neighbors. Through particle simulations and multiscale continuum modeling, we study how this feedback affects the size and orientation distribution of cells in proliferating bacterial colonies.

Active suspensions

Collections of active particles, such as swimming microorganisms, exhibit complex collective dynamics as a result of activity and hydrodynamic interactions. We study these systems using continuum kinetic theories, which describe the the particle configuration through a distribution function in position-orientation phase space. Rooted in microscopic modeling, these theories capture many essential features observed in physical systems and provide a clear interpretation of the model parameters. We develop computational and theoretical methods for simulating these models, analyzing their stability, and describing interactions with immersed objects.

Moving boundary problems

Moving boundary problems arise in many geophysical contexts such as melting, dissolution, and erosion. Using small-scale laboratory experiments and complementary numerical simulations, we study the fluid dynamics of these processes and their effect on shape change.