Soft materials are a broad class of condensed matter, which has important technological applications and forms the basis of most biological systems. I study experimental soft matter physics, with a special focus on the emergent flow behaviors of soft materials and their associated mesoscopic structures. My research group employs optical imaging techniques including confocal microscopy, high-speed photography, and digital holography to explore the dynamics and rheology of colloidal suspensions, the flow behaviors of granular materials, and fluid instabilities with free surface flows. Particularly, our group has studied the shear-banding flows in active bacterial suspensions and entangled polymeric fluids and explored the dynamics of colloidal supercooled liquids under confinement. Moreover, we have investigated the fast dynamics of drop impacts on solid and granular surfaces and revealed the temporal evolution of impact forces and pressures in single drop impact events.
Awards and Achievements
- NSF CAREER Award
- McKnight Land-Grant Professorship
- DARPA Young Faculty Award