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. 

Zhigang Jiang received his B.S. in physics in 1999 from Beijing University and his Ph.D. in 2005 from Northwestern University. He was also a postdoctoral research associate at Columbia University jointly with Princeton University and NHMFL from 2005 till 2008. Jiang is interested in the quantum transport and infrared optical properties of low dimensional condensed matter systems. The current ongoing projects include: (1) infrared spectroscopy study of graphene and topological insulators, (2) spin transport in graphene devices, and (3) Andreev reflection spectroscopy of candidate topological superconductors.

My lab is focused on understanding how proteins and other biological systems function at a molecular level. To probe these systems, we carry out molecular dynamics simulations, modeling biological behavior one atom at a time. The simulations serve as a "computational microscope" that permits glimpses into a cell's inner workings through the application of advanced software and high-powered supercomputers. We are particularly interested in how bacteria utilize unique pathways to synthesize proteins and insert them into both the inner and outer membranes, how they import nutrients across two membranes, and how their cell walls provide shape and mechanical strength.

My research integrates my work in complex fluids and granular media and the biomechanics of locomotion of organisms and robots to address problems in nonequilibrium systems that involve interaction of matter with complex media. For example, how do organisms like lizards, crabs, and cockroaches cope with locomotion on complex terrestrial substrates (e.g. sand, bark, leaves, and grass). I seek to discover how biological locomotion on challenging terrain results from the nonlinear, many degree of freedom interaction of the musculoskeletal and nervous systems of organisms with materials with complex physical behavior. The study of novel biological and physical interactions with complex media can lead to the discovery of principles that govern the physics of the media. My approach is to integrate laboratory and field studies of organism biomechanics with systematic laboratory studies of physics of the substrates, as well as to create mathematical and physical (robot) models of both organism and substrate. Discovery of the principles of locomotion on such materials will enhance robot agility on such substrates

A primary goal of Professor First's research is to develop an understanding of solid-state systems at atomic length scales. The main experimental tools in this pursuit are scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and related techniques such as ballistic electron emission microscopy (BEEM). These methods rely on the quantum-mechanical tunnel effect to obtain atomically-resolved maps of the electronic structure of surfaces, clusters, and buried layers.

My work is on excitable media, complex systems, and pattern formation, using a combined approach of theory, experiments, and computer simulations.

Interested in: Complex Systems, Experimental physiology, Biophysics, High performance computing and GPU.

Walter Alexander “Walt” de Heer is a Dutch physicist and nanoscience researcher known for discoveries in the electronic shell structure of metal clusters, magnetism in transition metal clusters, field emission and ballistic conduction in carbon nanotubes, and graphene-based electronics.

De Heer earned a doctoral degree in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1986 under the supervision of Walter D. Knight. He worked at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland from 1987 to 1997, and is currently a Regents' Professor of Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He directs the Epitaxial Graphene Laboratory in the School of Physics and leads the Epitaxial Graphene Interdisciplinary Research Group at the Georgia Tech Materials Research Science and Engineering Center.

Dragomir Davidovic's research focuses on the exploration of physical properties that emerge in objects when their size approaches nanometer-scale. The objects of study are metallic or insulating particles, molecules, atomic-scale diameter wires, and droplets of one phase surrounded by another phase. Recent advances in lithography enable attachment of these objects to larger scale conducting electrodes, making it possible to explore their physical properties by electronic transport. The properties of nanoscale objects can be fundamentally different from those in bulk. As an example, whereas in bulk metals, the energy spectrum of conduction electrons is continuous, in metallic nanoparticles the spectrum is discrete. As a result, metallic nanoparticles are more like atoms than bulk metals, and nanoparticles are commonly referred to as artificial atoms.