Simulations of Soft Matter
Group Leader: Prof Halim Kusumaatmaja
Welcome to the Kusumaatmaja group based in the Department of Physics at Durham! We are interested in Theoretical and Computational Soft Matter and Biophysics. Our work is interdisciplinary, lying at the interface between Physics, Chemistry, Engineering, and Biology. Please see our research summary and publications if you want to learn more about our work.
Recent News:
15/11/2021: Dr Abhinav Naga is starting his PDRA in the group. Abhinav was previously a PhD student at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research. Welcome Abhinav!
2/11/2021: Halim is giving an invited seminar at the University of Strathclyde as part of the Continuum mechanics & industrial mathematics seminar series.
11/10/2021: Dr Jack Panter is starting his PDRA in Halim's group. Jack was previously a PDRA in Cambridge with Prof David Wales FRS and a PhD student in Halim's group. Welcome back Jack!
4/10/2021: Michael Rennick and Alexander Brown are starting their PhDs in the group. Michael will be part of Halim's EPSRC Fellowsip project, while Alex is funded by the MoSMed CDT in collaboration with RWTH Aachen. Michael and Alex were previously 4th year project students in the group. Welcome Michael and Alex!
4/10/2021: Xiaotian Ma is starting his 4th year project in the group. Welcome Xiaotian!
28/9/2021: Finlay submitted his Master's thesis entitled "Colloidal Crystals on Conical Surfaces". Finlay is off to Cambridge to do a PhD.
13-17/9/2021: Halim attended the DSFD conference. [www]
13/9/2021: Halim attended the LMS DOS network meeting organised by Dr Elsen Tjhung from Durham. This network is funded by the London Mathematical Society and includes Durham, Oxford, Strathclyde and Glasgow Universities.
9/9/2021: Sam's paper "Tailoring the Multistability of Origami-Inspired, Buckled Magnetic Structures via Compression and Creasing" has been accepted for publication in Materials Horizon. This is joint work with the groups of Teng Zhang (Syracuse) and Xueju Wang (Connecticut). [www]
8-10/9/2021: Halim attended and giving a talk at the 2021 UK Fluids Conference. [www]
19/8/2021: A new paper "Apparent Contact Angle of Droplets on Liquid Infused Surfaces: Geometric Interpretation" has been accepted for publication in Soft Matter. This is joint work with Ciro Semprebon, Subkhi Sadullah and Glen McHale [www]. This paper has been chosen for a journal front cover! Well done Ciro and Subkhi for designing the cover.
16-18/8/2021: Halim will attend and present at the Droplets 2021 meeting to be held in hybrid format, online and in Darmstadt, Germany.
4/8/2021: A new paper entitled "Wetting of Phase-Separated Droplets on Vacuole Membranes Leads to A Competition between Tonoplast Budding and Nanotube Formation" has been accepted for publication in PNAS. This is joint work with Alex May, Mistianne Feeney, Joe McKenna, Noboru Mizushima, Lorenzo Frigerio and Roland Knorr. [www]
30/7/2021: Halim is Co-I on a new EPSRC £1M ExCALIBUR project "Quantum Enhanced and Verified Exascale Computing" led by Viv Kendon. Our group's part concerns with how we may exploit quantum computing algorithm(s) for the lattice Boltzmann method. This involves collaboration between Durham, UCL, Warwick and London South Bank Universities. [www]
29/7/2021: A new perspective article "Intracellular Wetting Mediates Contact between Liquid Compartments and Membrane-Bound Organelles" has been accepted for publication in Journal of Cell Biology. This is joint work with Roland Knorr and Alex May. [www]
26-28/7/2021: Halim attended the Physics Meets Biology 2021 conference. Halim presented a poster based on Carl Jones' work on stress granules.
23/7/2021: A new paper entitled "Apparent Contact Angle of Droplets on Liquid Infused Surfaces: Geometric Interpretation" has been accepted for publication in Soft Matter. This is joint work with Ciro Semprebon, Glen McHale and Subkhi Sadullah.
21-22/7/2021: Halim and Alvin the UKCOMES International Summer Workshop. Alvin presented his work on ternary phase separation.
28/6/2021: Michael Rennick is starting his summer project funded by CCP5. This project is in collaboration with Dr Jianping Meng from STFC.
28/6/2021: A new paper entitled "Reconfiguration of Multistable 3D Ferromagnetic Mesostructures Guided by Energy Landscape Surveys" has been accepted for publication in Extreme Mechanics Letters. This is a joint work with the groups of Teng Zhang (Syracuse) and Xueju Wang (Connecticut). [www]
22-25/6/2021: Halim attended and gave an invited talk at the TSRC workshop on Complexity in the Chemistry and Physics of Lipid Membranes [www]
14-16/6/2021: Halim attended the IOP conference on Designed Assembly of Colloids at Interfaces.
10/6/2021: Halim attended the IOP Theory of Condensed Matter Theory Day.
9/6/2021: Halim gave a invited seminar for the Materials and Biological Physics group, University of Sheffield.
31/5-2/6/2021: Halim attended SoftComp Annual Meeting and gave a talk on Superselective Binding on 3D hosts. Sarah presented a poster on liquid infused surfaces as well.
12/5/2021: A new paper on "Apparent Contact Angle of Droplets on Liquid Infused Surfaces: Geometric Interpretation" is now on arXiv [www]. This is joint work with Ciro Semprebon, Muhammad Subkhi Sadullah and Glen McHale.
6/5/2021: Congratulations to Sarah for coming up as runner up in the 2021 Durham Three Minute Thesis competition.
20-22/4/2021: Halim attended the workshop on Roadmapping of Quantitative Understanding and Modelling of Cleaning and Decontamination.
6-9/4/2021: Halim attended the BMC BAMC 2021 conference and gave a talk on Phase transitions on non-uniform curved surfaces: Coupling between phase and location in MS21: Mathematical and Physical Challenges in Anisotropic Soft Matter.
6/4/2021: Halim gave an invited seminar on "Biomimetic Wetting and Interfacial Phenomena: Where Physics and Engineering Meet Chemistry and Biology" for I4's Materials Science and Engineering cluster.
26/3/2021: Congratulations for Dr Carl Jones for passing his PhD viva!
25/3/2021: Halim has been awarded a £1.1M EPSRC Fellowship with a project entitled "Multiphase Multicomponent Lattice Boltzmann Method for Modelling Wetting on Liquid Infused Surfaces". There will be open postdoc and PhD positions associated with this Fellowship project in due course. [www]
22/3/2021: Halim gave a contributed talk at mini symposium Structural Instabilities: From Failure to Function in ASCE Engineering Mechanics Institute International Conference.
10/3/2021: Halim gave an invited online seminar in the Physical Applied Mathematics seminar series, University of Manchester.
29/1/2021: Halim attended and gave an invited talk at an online workshop "Mesoscale Modelling of Interface Fluids" organised by ExxonMobil.
21/1/2021: Halim gave an invited online seminar for the Centro de Física Teórica e Computacional group at the University of Lisbon.