A fundamental challenge of modern physical science is to form structure that is not frozen in place but instead reconfigures internally driven by energy throughput and adapts to its environment robustly. Predicated on fluorescence imaging at the single-particle level, the speaker will describe quantitative studies of how this can happen. With Janus colloidal clusters, he will also show the powerful role of synchronized motion in self-assembly. In living cells, he finds that transportation efficiency problems bear a provocative parallel with polymer chain trajectories with their spatial extent, and with jammed matter in their time evolution. A picture emerges in which simple experiments, performed at single-particle and single-molecule resolution, can dissect macroscopic phenomena in ways that surprise.
About the speaker
Prof Steve Granick received his PhD from University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1982 and joined University of Illinois in 1985, where he eventually become the Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; of Chemistry; and of Biophysics and Physics. In 2015, he moved to the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) as the Distinguished Professor and is also the Director of the IBS Center for Soft and Living Matter.
Prof Granick’s research interest focuses on in vivo and in vitro biophysics; complex fluids; single molecules, particles and advanced imaging. He has served on the editorial boards for a number of journals and holds a few patents for his research findings.
Prof Granick was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2016); a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences (2015); and a Fellow of the American Physical Society (1992). He was also awarded the Surface and Colloid Chemistry National Prize by the American Chemical Society (2013) and the Polymer Physics National Prize by the American Physical Society (2009).
For attendees’ attention
The lecture is free and open to all. Seating is on a first come, first served basis.
