Andrew Zangwill

Andrew Zangwill
andrew.zangwill@physics.gatech.edu

Professor Zangwill earned a B.S. in Physics at Carnegie-Mellon University in 1976. His 1981 Ph.D. in Physics at the University of Pennsylvania introduced the time-dependent density functional method. 

He worked at Brookhaven National Laboratory and the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn from 1981-1985 before taking up his present position at the Georgia Institute of Technology. 

He was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1997 for theoretical studies of epitaxial crystal growth. 

He is the author of the monograph Physics at Surfaces (1988) and the graduate textbook Modern Electrodynamics (2013). In 2013, he began publishing scholarly work on the history of condensed matter physics.

Professor, School of Physics
Phone
404.894.7333
Office
Howey N102
Additional Research

ElectrodynamicsEpitaxial GrowthQuantum MaterialsIII-V Semiconductor Devices

University, College, and School/Department
Georgia Institute of Technology > College of Sciences > School of Physics

Peter Yunker

Peter Yunker
peter.yunker@gatech.edu

Dr. Yunker joined Georgia Tech’s School of Physics in 2014 after finishing his biophysics postdoc at Harvard University & New England Biolabs in 2014. Before that, he earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania in 2012 after earning a B.S. in Physics from Texas A&M University in 2005. He has won the Burstein Prize and the Denenstein Award both from UPenn along with the Eric R. Immel Memorial award for Excellence in Teaching at GT. 

Peter’s interests are biophysics, soft matter, and golden retrievers.

Associate Professor
Phone
404-385-8642
Office
Boggs B20
Additional Research
Nonequilibrium systems, densely packed active matter with life and death events, microbial physics, structural mechanics, fracture mechanics, evolution.
IRI/Group and Role
Bioengineering and Bioscience > Faculty
Bioengineering and Bioscience
University, College, and School/Department
Georgia Institute of Technology > College of Sciences > School of Physics

Rick Trebino

Rick Trebino
rick.trebino@physics.gatech.edu
Professor
Phone
(404) 385-1223
Additional Research
Electronics
IRI/Group and Role
Energy > Research Community
Energy
University, College, and School/Department
Georgia Institute of Technology > College of Sciences > School of Physics

Simon Sponberg

Simon Sponberg
simon.sponberg@physics.gatech.edu

During his graduate work at UC, Berkeley, Simon sought to uncover general principles of animal locomotion that reveal control strategies underlying the remarkable stability and maneuverability of movement in nature. His work has demonstrated the importance animals’ natural dynamics for maintaining stability in the absence of neural feedback. His research emphasizes the importance of placing neural control in the appropriate dynamical context using mathematical and physical models. He has collaborated with researchers at four other institutions to transfer these principles to the design of the next generation of bio-inspired legged robots. 

Simon received his Ph.D. in Integrative Biology at UC, Berkeley and has been a Hertz Fellow since 2002. His work has led to fellowships and awards from the National Science Foundation, the University of California, the Woods Hole Marine Biological Institute, the American Physical Society, the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology, and the International Association of Physics Students. He is also currently affiliated the new Center for Interdisciplinary Bio-Inspiration in Education and Research (CIBER) at Berkeley.

Dunn Family Associate Professor; Physics & Biological Sciences
Director; Agile Systems Lab
Phone
404.385.4053
Office
Howey C205
Additional Research
A central challenge for many organisms is the generation of stable, versatile locomotion through irregular, complex environments. Animals have evolved to negotiate almost every environment on this planet. To do this, animals'nervous systems acquire, process and act upon information. Yet their brains must operate through the mechanics of the body's sensors and actuators to both perceive and act upon the environment. Ourresearch investigates howphysics and physiologyenable locomoting animals to achieve the remarkable stability and maneuverability we see in biological systems. Conceptually, this demands combining neuroscience, muscle physiology, and biomechanics with an eye towards revealing mechanism and principle -- an integrative science of biological movement. This emerging field, termedneuromechanics, does for biology what mechatronics, the integration of electrical and mechanical system design, has done for engineering. Namely, it provides a mechanistic context for the electrical (neuro-) and physical (mechanical) determinants of movement in organisms. Weexplore how animals fly and run stably even in the face of repeated perturbations, how the multifuncationality of muscles arises from their physiological properties, and how the tiny brains of insects organize and execute movement.
IRI/Group and Role
Bioengineering and Bioscience > Faculty
Robotics > Core Faculty
Robotics
Bioengineering and Bioscience
University, College, and School/Department
Georgia Institute of Technology > College of Sciences > School of Physics

D. Zeb Rocklin

D. Zeb Rocklin
zeb.rocklin@physics.gatech.edu

I have a broad range of interests in soft condensed matter physics and adjacent fields like statistical physics, physics of living systems and hard condensed matter. My particular focus is on the relationship between the geometric structure of a system and its mechanical response. Both biological and engineered systems often have some structure, such as networks of struts, particles jammed together or patterns of creases in thin sheets, that grant them flexibility and strength with a minimum of weight. These structures can lead to subtle and surprising mechanical response:

Assistant Professor, School of Physics
IMS Initiative Lead, Mechanical Metamaterials
Phone
404.385.8104
Additional Research

Condensed matter physics, statistical physics, physics of living systems, and hard condensed matter.

IRI/Group and Role
Matter and Systems > Affiliated Faculty
University, College, and School/Department
Georgia Institute of Technology > College of Sciences > School of Physics
Research Areas
Matter and Systems
  • Built Environment Technologies
  • Frontiers in Infrastructure

Chandra Raman

Chandra Raman
craman@gatech.edu

The Raman Group has two main thrusts.  The team utilizes sophisticated tools to cool atoms to temperatures less than one millionth of a degree above absolute zero. Using these tools, they explore topics ranging from superfluidity in Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) to quantum antiferromagnetism in a spinor condensate.  In another effort the team partners with engineers to build cutting edge atomic quantum sensors on-chip that can one day be mass-produced.

Professor, School of Physics
Phone
404.894.9062
Office
Howey N04
Additional Research

Spinor Bose-Einstein Condensates

IRI/Group and Role
Matter and Systems > Affiliated Faculty
University, College, and School/Department
Georgia Institute of Technology > College of Sciences > School of Physics

Dimitrios Psaltis

Dimitrios Psaltis
dpsaltis3@gatech.edu

I am a professor of Physics at Georgia Tech. I use advanced computational techniques, hybrid computer architectures, and innovative algorithms to answer fundamental questions related to the observational appearance of black holes, the properties of magnetohydrodynamic turbulence, and the interaction of matter with radiation in extreme conditions.

I am a founding member of the Event Horizon Telescope, the international mm-VLBI experiment that has taken the first picture of a black hole with the horizon-scale resolution, and served for three years (2016-2019) as the Project Scientist of the collaboration.

Before moving to Georgia Tech in 2022, I was a professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Arizona and the Chair of the Theoretical Astrophysics Program there.

Professor
Additional Research

Black Hole Images General Relativity

IRI/Group and Role
Data Engineering and Science > Faculty
Data Engineering and Science
University, College, and School/Department
Georgia Institute of Technology > College of Sciences > School of Physics
Research Areas
Artificial Intelligence

Martin Mourigal

Martin Mourigal
mourigal@gatech.edu

Martin Mourigal received the B.S in Materials from Ecole des Mines de Nancy in 2004. He later received his M.S. and Ph.D. in physics from Ecole Polytechnique Federale (EPFL) located in Lausanne, Switzerland in 2007 and 2011, respectively. He was also a postdoctoral research fellow in John Hopkins University from 2011 until 2014. He joined Georgia Tech in 2015 and is currently an assistant professor in the School of Physics. Mourigal's lab focuses on the study of collective electronic and magnetic phenomena in quantum materials. His research exploits the unique strengths of neutron and X-ray scattering to probe the organization and the dynamics of matter at the nanoscale.In addition to his own lab research, Mourigal is the co-director of the Georgia Tech Quantum Alliance, a university wide program that will work towards solving problems in optimization, cryptography, and artificial intelligence. Mourigal was awarded the Cullen Peck Faculty Scholar Award from Georgia Tech in 2019. He was also awarded the National Science Foundation CAREER Award for excellence as a young educator and researcher in 2018.

Professor, School of Physics
Initiative Lead, Georgia Tech Quantum Alliance
Phone
404.385.5669
Office
Howey C202
Additional Research

Quantum Materials, Micro and Nanomechanics, Ferroelectronic Materials, Materials Data Sciences, Electronics

IRI/Group and Role
Data Engineering and Science > Faculty
Energy > Research Community
Matter and Systems > Affiliated Faculty
Data Engineering and Science
Energy
University, College, and School/Department
Georgia Institute of Technology > College of Sciences > School of Physics
Research Areas
Matter and Systems
  • Frontiers in Infrastructure

Sabetta Matsumoto

Sabetta Matsumoto
sabetta@gatech.edu

Sabetta Matsumoto received her B.A., M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Princeton Center for Theoretical Sciences and in the Applied Mathematics group and Harvard University. She is a professor in the School of Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She uses differential geometry, knot theory, and geometric topology to understand the geometry of materials and their mechanical properties. She is passionate about using textiles, 3D printing, and virtual reality to teach geometry and topology to the public.

Associate Professor
IRI/Group and Role
Bioengineering and Bioscience > Faculty
Matter and Systems > Affiliated Faculty
Bioengineering and Bioscience
University, College, and School/Department
Georgia Institute of Technology > College of Sciences > School of Physics
Research Areas
Matter and Systems
  • Frontiers in Infrastructure

Itamar Kolvin

Itamar Kolvin
ikolvin@gatech.edu

Itamar Kolvin received his B.Sc. (2007) in Physics and Mathematics and his M.Sc. (2009) from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In 2017, he completed his Ph.D. in Physics under Prof. Jay Fineberg in the Hebrew University. He was a HFSP cross-disciplinary postdoctoral fellow in the Physics Department, University of California, Santa Barbara with Pro. Zvonimir Dogic. His research interests are in the fundamentals of soft matter out-of-equilibrium: assembly, deformation, flow and fracture. Current efforts make use of model systems that are assembled of protein machineries to investigate active and adaptive material mechanics. 

Assistant Professor, School of Physics
Office
MoSE 2144
IRI/Group and Role
Bioengineering and Bioscience
University, College, and School/Department
Georgia Institute of Technology > College of Sciences > School of Physics