Zvonimir Dogic
UC Santa Barbara
Seminar Information
The laws of equilibrium statistical mechanics impose severe constraints on the properties of conventional materials assembled from inanimate building blocks. Consequently, such materials cannot exhibit spontaneous motion or perform macroscopic work. For example, a conventional fluid in a beaker remains quiescent unless driven by external forces. Inspired by biological phenomena, our goal is to develop a new category of soft active, and adaptive materials assembled from animate, energy-consuming building blocks. Released from the constraints of the equilibrium, such internally driven materials are able to change shape, crawl, flow, swim, and exert forces on their boundaries to produce macroscopic work. Active materials assembled from cytoskeleton components can serve as a powerful platform for developing novel material applications, testing fundamental theoretical models of far-from-equilibrium active matter, and potentially even shedding light on the self-organization of living cells.
Prof. Zvonimir Dogic research interests are primarily experimental and span both equilibrium and non-equilibrium phenomena. He uses various biological architectures to create novel soft materials that exhibit physics that is not easily accessible by using purely synthetic methods. He actively collaborates with numerous theorists as well as experimentalists from different disciplines both within and outside of physics. He obtained his BA and Ph.D. in Physics from Brandeis University. After postdoctoral positions in Research Center Julich, Germany, and the University of Pennsylvania, he was a Research Fellow at Rowland Institute at Harvard. In 2007 he started as an Assistant Professor in Physics at Brandeis University, and in 2017 he moved to the University of California at Santa Barbara.