Harnessing active matter for biomimetic micro-robotic systems
Speaker: Dr. Petia Vlahovska
Northwestern University, Professor of Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering (courtesy) and Physics and Astronomy (courtesy)
When: October 3, 2024 | 12:30 – 1:30 PM
Location: CEME Building, room 2022 (6250 Applied Science Lane, Vancouver)
The Department of Mechanical Engineering’s Distinguished Colloquium series invites leading researchers to share their expertise on a variety of topics with our academic community.
Abstract:
Bacteria and cells like the neutrophile exhibit directed motion as they sense and move towards food while navigating complex environments. An artificial system that mimics this type of behavior holds great potential for the engineering of autonomous micro-robotic systems.
In this talk, I will overview our efforts to design active particles (entities capable of harvesting energy from the environment and converting it into motion) that perform Run-and-Tumble-like locomotion like E. coli and self-organize into swarms which when confined into a droplet cause drop motility resembling amoeba crawling. As active particles we utilize colloids made motile by the Quincke effect that causes particles to spontaneously roll on a surface in a uniform electric field. These Quincke rollers exhibit rich individual and collective dynamics suggesting they are a promising model system to elucidate design principles for transporting cargo with active particles.
Biography:
Petia M. Vlahovska is a Professor of Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics at Northwestern University. She received a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Yale University (2003) and MS in Chemistry from Sofia University, Bulgaria (1994). Prior to joining Northwestern University, she was faculty at Dartmouth College and Brown University. Her research encompasses fluid dynamics, membrane biophysics, and soft matter. Prof. Vlahovska is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (2019); she has been awarded is a Guggenheim Fellowship (2024), National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2009), David Crighton Fellowship from the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, UK (2004), and a Research Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to visit the Membrane Biophysics Lab at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces (2016).