Berkeley Fluids Seminar

Monday, October 2, 2017

3110, Etcheverry Hall, 12:00-13:00

Dr. Sho Takatori (UC Santa Barbara)

Forces, Stresses, and the (Thermo?) Dynamics of Active Matter

Abstract: A core feature of many living systems is their ability to move, to self-propel, to be active. From bird flocks to bacteria swarms, to even cytoskeletal networks, “active matter” systems exhibit collective and emergent dynamics owing to their constituents’ ability to convert chemical fuel into mechanical activity. Here, I present a new framework to interpret living matter as a material and understand its complex behavior using tools of hydrodynamics, kinetic theory, and nonequilibrium statistical mechanics. I combine experimental and computational methods to demonstrate how intrinsic activity imparts new behaviors to soft materials that explain a variety of complex phenomena, including the collective motion of self-propelled particles and the complete loss of shear viscosity in fluid suspensions. Additionally, I engineer giant phospholipid vesicles of active matter that model the nonequilibrium stresses generated by biopolymers and molecular motors inside living cells. These nature-inspired soft materials have tunable properties that could be used as mechanical devices with applications in sustainable manufacturing, robotics, and biotechnology

Bio: Sho is currently a Miller Research Fellow in the Bioengineering Department. He obtained his PhD at the California Institute of Technology, where he worked with Professor John Brady on the statistical mechanics and rheology of nonequilibrium active matter fluids. He was also a visiting scholar in Professor Jan Vermant’s soft matter and interfacial rheology group at ETH Zürich. Prior to enrolling at Caltech, Sho earned a bachelors in Chemical Engineering from UC Berkeley.

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Acknowledgments

Prof. Graham Fleming (Vice Chancellor for Research, UC Berkeley)

Prof. Eliot Quataert on behalf of The Theoretical Astrophysics Center and the Astronomy Department (UC Berkeley)

Prof. Philip S. Marcus on behalf of the Mechanical Engineering Department (UC Berkeley)

Prof. Michael Manga (Earth and Planetary Science, UC Berkeley)

Prof. Evan Variano (Civil and Environmental Engineering, UC Berkeley)