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.
Open Positions: As part of SOFI2 CDT, we have open PhD positions for the following projects.
Wetting on Patterned Liquid Surfaces (with Dr Rodrigo Ledesma, Edinburgh)
Governing Principles of Condensate-Membrane Interactions in Biological Cells (with Dr Mark Miller, Durham)
Recent News:
13-15/03/2023: Halim is attending and speaking at the CECAM workshop on "Metastability and multiscale effects in interfacial phenomena"
11/03/2023: A new paper on "Rough Capillary Rise" is published by Communications Physics [www]. This is a joint collaboration with colleagues at ExxonMobil.
1/03/2023: Halim attended and spoke at the IAS meeting "Development Of Smart Surfaces With Antimicrobial Properties" at the University of Birmingham.
14/2/2023: Dr Xitong Zhang is joining our group as a PDRA. He will work on a Leverhulme project together with colleagues at the University of Edinburgh. Welcome Xitong!
6/2/2023: Halim attended the UKCOMES kick-off meeting in London.
19/12/2022: Abhinav Naga has been awarded a National Fellowship in Fluid Dynamics by EPSRC. Congratulations for Abhinav!
16/12/2022: Halim gave an invited colloquium talk for DFG Priority Programme "Dynamic Wetting of Flexible, Adaptive, and Switchable Surfaces” (SPP 2171)
9/12/2022: The UKCOMES (UK Consortium on Mesoscale Engineering Sciences) proposal will be funded by EPSRC under the High End Computing Consortia call. Halim is work package leader on Multiphase and Interfacial Flows.
7/12/2022: The proposal 21ENGBIO - Converting a cellular dustbin into a protein storing organelle will be funded by BBSRC. Halim is a Co-I in this project led by Prof Lorenzo Frigerio at the University of Warwick.
14-15/11/2022: Halim, Abhinav and Ben Xu (Northumbria) organised "Bio-Inspired and Smart Surfaces" SIG event. Day 1 focuses on the science while day 2 is dedicated for ECR careers.
25/10/2022: Halim and Omer attended a QEVEC-CCPQC workshop in Manchester.
20/10/2022: Halim visited Oxford and gave an invited seminar as part of the Industrial and Applied Mathematics Seminar.
13/10/2022: Halim gave an online invited talk at the 3rd International Conference on Chemistry and Science Education held in Padang, Indonesia.
3/10/2022: Szymon Oramus is joining our group for his L4 project. Szymon will work with Halim and Abhinav on liquid infused surfaces.
3/10/2022: Xiaotian Ma is joining our group for his PhD. Xiaotian will work with Halim and Mark Miller on liquid-liquid phase separation.
30/9/2022: Michael's paper on "3D-Printed Liquid Diodes with Tunable Velocity: Design Guidelines and Applications for Liquid Collection and Transport" in collaboration with the Pinchasik group has been accepted for publication in Physics of Fluids.
26/9/2022: Raymond's paper on "Modelling the Dynamics of Partially Wetting Droplets on Fibres" has been accepted for publication in Physical Review Fluids.
6-8/9/2022: Halim, Abhinav and Jack are attending and giving talks at the UK Fluids Conference 2022 in Sheffield.
28/8/2022: Halim gave an invited talk for the Physics and Mathematics Cluster in Forum Cendekia Kelas Dunia 2022 (online, Indonesia)
22-26/8/2022: Halim attended (online) and gave a contributed talk at the 2022 Discrete Simulation of Fluid Dynamics conference (Soochow University, China)
17-19/8/2022: Halim attended (online) and gave an invited talk at the Nature Inspired Surface Engineering 2022 conference (Seoul National University, South Korea)
1/8/2022: Welcome to Omer Rathore, who will start his PDRA as part of the QEVEC project.
29/7/2022: Jack's paper with Chris Prior (Durham Maths) on "A Minimal Model of Elastic Instabilities in Biological Filament Bundles" has been accepted for publication in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
18/7/2022: Alvin's paper on "Spontaneous Phase Separation of Ternary Fluid Mixtures" has been accepted for publication in Soft Matter.
13/7/2022: Sarah Goodband passed her PhD Viva. Thanks to Aidan Hindmarch and Fouzia Ouali who examine Sarah's thesis.
30/6/2022: The proposal on NSF GEO-NERC: Collaborative Research: A general model for bubble nucleation and growth in volcanic systems has been awarded for funding by NSF and NERC. Halim is a Co-I in this interdisciplinary project involving Durham, Lehigh, Texas and Lafayette Universities.
30/6-1/7/2022: Halim is co-organising an LMS DOS network meeting on Anisotropic Materials. Speakers include Apala Majumdar (Strathclyde), Stephen Morris (Oxford), Andrew Krause (Durham), Tyler Shendruk (Edinburgh), Devesh Mistry (Leeds), and Halim Kusumaatmaja (Durham)
28/6/2022: Alvin Shek passed his PhD Viva. Well done Alvin! Thanks to Kislon Voitchovsky and Rodrigo Ledesma who examine the thesis.
20/6/2022: Sami Al-Izzi from UNSW is visiting the group and giving a seminar on "Ordered Structures and Flows in Living Matter: Actomyosin and Tissues"
15/6/2022: Chiu-Fan Lee from Imperial College London is visiting the group and giving a CMP seminar on "Conversion-limited phase separation in biological cells".
6/6/2022: Thomas Williamson and Alex Moorhouse are starting their summer projects in the group. Welcome Thomas and Alex.
1/6/2022: Halim is co-organising a SIG online event. Speakers include Chiara Neto (Sydney), Prashant Agrawal (Northumbria), Matthew Moore (Hull), and Daniel Orejon (Edinburgh)
3/5/2022: A new paper on "Using Shape Fluctuations to Probe the Mechanics of Stress Granules" has been posted on bioRxiv.
3/5/2022: A new paper on "Systematic Characterization of Effect of Flow Rates and Buffer Compositions on Double Emulsion Droplet Volumes and Stability" has been accepted for publication in Lab on a Chip. This is joint work with Polly Fordyce and Gerald Fuller's groups at Stanford [www] [bioRxiv].
3/5/2022: Halim attended and gave a talk at the SOFI/SOFI2 CDT Industry Network Event.
11/4/2022: A new paper on "3D-Printed Liquid Diodes: Design Guidelines and Applications to Liquid Collection and Transport" has been submitted for publication. This is a joint work with the Pinchasik group from Tel-Aviv University.
31/03/2022: A new paper on "Spontaneous Phase Separation of Ternary Fluid Mixtures" has been submitted for publication. This is a joint work with Alvin Shek [arXiv].
17/3/2022: A new paper on a novel "Binary Image Transition State Search" method has been submitted for publication. This is a project with Sam Avis and Jack Panter.
16/3/2022: Halim visited the Department of Physics and Mathematics at Hull and gave an invited seminar.
7/3/2022: A new paper on "Systematic Characterization of Double Emulsion Droplets for Biological Applications" has been submitted for publication and posted on bioRxiv [www]. This is joint work with Polly Fordyce and Gerald Fuller's groups at Stanford.
7/3/2022: Ke Sun will work with Halim and Prof Kislon Voitchovsky for her PhD starting in April 2022. Ke is part of cohort 3 of SOFI2 CDT. Welcome Ke!
2/3/2022: Halim visited the Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge and gave an invited seminar.
25/2/2022: Halim has been selected in APS' 2022 list of outstanding referees [www].
17-18/2/2022: Halim is attending and giving an invited talk at UKCOMES Spring International Workshop on Mesoscale Modelling and Simulation.
10/2/2022: We have an opening for a PDRA position to work on "Quantum Algorithms for Fluid Simulations [www].
25/1/2022: Andrew Christy has passed his viva. Congrats Andrew!
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.