Why does the movement of epithelial cells slow down during maturation? Why can peanut butter spread on bread like a liquid, but it doesn’t flow when you flip the bread over? Why can one quickly run across a pool filled with corn starch and water, but sinks when stand on the suspension? These questions are keys to soft matter physics.
Soft materials, such as granular media, colloids, emulsions, and foams, are the materials with both solid-like and liquid-like properties. They are very common in medical and industrial applications. For example, sand, blood flow, collective cells, cosmetics, petroleum, and soft robotics like an artery stent are made of soft materials. In these systems, understanding and controlling their dynamic and structural properties, as well as their long-term evolution and stability, are of fundamental importance. My research interest is studying the properties of soft materials utilizing microfluidic techniques, microscopy and image analysis.
Due to the disordered microscopic structure, soft materials don't flow smoothly as a liquid does. The particles in soft materials need to move cooperatively with their neighbors to make free space for structural rearrangements. I study the underlying physics of the cooperative dynamics of emulsion droplets during jamming. I plan to apply machine learning algorithm to identify the cooperative rearrangement patterns and study the correlation between the dynamics and the various features in the system.
In this research, we use microfluidic techniques to generate oil droplets and use Python to conduct image analysis.
Skills you will learn: Microscopy | Microfluidic Technique | Image Analysis \w Python | Machine Learning
Soft robots fabricated with flexible and adaptive materials have made the human-robot interactions or collaborations safe and feasible. The non-linear mechanical responses of metamaterials make it possible to perform complex task in soft robots. One of non-linear mechanical responses is ‘Auxetic behavior’: when the metamaterials are stretched in one direction, unlike conventional materials, they will also expand in the lateral direction. This mechanical property is only defined by the repetitive inner structures, instead of the chemical composites. We used 3D printer to efficiently design and fabricate Auxetic structures and quantitatively study how structural features affect the Auxetic behavior.
Skills you will learn: 3D Printing | Script CAD | Image Analysis \w Python
Anna Repesh ('20 Aquinas College) - Biomedical Engineering Master Program at GVSU
Edward Kaleel ('19 Aquinas College) - Engineering Master Program at WMU
Kenny Nguyen ('18 Aquinas College) - PhD student in Chemistry at OSU
Levi Milan ('17 Aquinas College) - Engineering Program