Postdoctoral Research Experience
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I am currently a postdoc in David J. Srolovitz's research group at the University of Pennsylvania (Department of Materials Science and Engineering). We are exploring ways to use defects, interfaces, bending, and other aspects of 2D materials to create and dynamically control novel functional properties in this emerging class of materials.
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Before moving to UPenn, I was a postdoc in Mikko P. Haataja's group at Princeton University (Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering). Here we studied structural phase transitions and mechanics in 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (MoS2, WTe2, etc.), intracellular phase transitions associated with biological organelle assembly (with Clifford P. Brangwynne, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering), compositional domain evolution in stacked lipid bilayer membranes, and microfracture in solid oxide fuel cell materials.
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Before this, I worked jointly with Nikolas Provatas' and Jörg Rottler's research groups at McMaster University (Department of Materials Science and Engineering) and the University of British Columbia (Department of Physics and Astronomy), respectively. My research centered on modeling atomic-scale plasticity processes (dislocation dynamics) over long (diffusive) time scales using the phase field crystal (PFC) approach. We studied creep in nano-polycrystals, the dynamics of dissociated dislocations in fcc crystals, and both conservative and nonconservative dislocation creation mechanisms in fcc and bcc crystals.
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PhD
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I completed my PhD in Physics at McGill University under the supervision of Martin Grant. I also worked closely with Ken Elder (Oakland Univeristy, Department of Physics) during this time. We focused on modeling atomic-scale nonequilibrium phenomena in liquids, glasses, and crystals over coarse-grained (diffusive) time scales. I developed and applied phase field crystal (PFC) models to problems concerning glass formation kinetics, high temperature plasticity of crystals and glasses, grain boundary premelting transitions, and composition-strain coupling in alloy thin film growth (heteroepitaxy).
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