Jordan L. Shivers

I am a Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Chicago, where I am jointly mentored by Suri Vaikuntanathan and Aaron Dinner. I am broadly interested in the physics and engineering of active soft and biological matter, and I tackle problems in this area using a combination of computer simulations, theoretical soft matter physics, and machine learning techniques, often in collaboration with experimental groups.

I received a Ph.D. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Rice University in 2022, under the supervision of Fred MacKintosh. There, I used theoretical and computational tools from soft matter and statistical physics to model the mechanics and dynamics of disordered biological materials.

In 2016, I received a B.S.E. with honors in Chemical and Biological Engineering from Princeton University, where I worked with Cliff Brangwynne to develop a novel experimental technique to enable observing the viscoelastic behavior of biological condensates in developing nematodes.

Research interests
  • statistical physics of soft, active, and biological matter
  • mechanics and dynamics of living cells and tissues
  • machine learning for physics and engineering
  • metamaterials and trainable matter
Let’s connect!

I’m always excited to discuss new ideas and potential collaborations. Feel free to reach out if you’re interested in my research!


news

05 Oct 2024 I led a hands-on demo on non-Newtonian fluids at U. Chicago’s South Side Science Festival, as part of the NSF Center for Living Systems tent. Check out our poster!
27 Sep 2024 I attended the Schmidt Sciences AI4Matter Symposium at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore from Sep 23-27.
30 Jul 2024 I presented a poster entitled Thermodynamics of morphological transitions in growing membranes at the 8th International Soft Matter Conference in Raleigh, NC.
28 Jul 2024 Our preprint exploring mechanical criticality in network-based composites is now on arXiv.
26 Jul 2024 Our paper characterizing the nonlinear Poisson effect in semiflexible polymer gels is now published in Physical Review E.
27 May 2024 Our paper on the effects of matrix incompressibility on the rheology of composite gels was published in The European Physical Journal E.
09 May 2024 I served as a co-organizer for U. Chicago’s first AI in Science Hackathon, which had more than 50 participants. Congratulations to the winning teams and all participants!
02 Feb 2024 Our paper on molecular motor-controlled elastic effects in active liquid crystals was published in Soft Matter.
24 Nov 2023 On Nov. 24, I gave a talk at the Isaac Newton Institute entitled “Dynamics and instabilities in growing fluid membranes.”
04 Nov 2023 From Nov. 4-26, I am visiting the Isaac Newton Institute at the University of Cambridge to participate in the program “New Statistical Physics in Living Matter.”
26 Oct 2023 Our paper investigating slow dynamics in strained fiber networks is now published in Physical Review Letters.
14 Sep 2023 I gave a talk on Morphological transitions in growing membranes during the workshop “Mechanics of Cells and Polymer Networks” at the Banff International Research Station in Banff, Alberta, CA.
21 Jul 2023 I served as a co-organizer for U. Chicago’s second annual AI in Science Summer School (Jul. 17-21), which hosted 10 invited speakers and more than 90 attendees from around the country.

selected publications [full list]

  1. nonaffinity_dynamics.png
    Strain-controlled critical slowing down in the rheology of disordered networks
    Jordan L. ShiversAbhinav Sharma, and Fred C. MacKintosh
    Physical Review Letters 131, 178201 (2023)
  2. network_assembly.png
    Structural features and nonlinear rheology of self-assembled networks of cross-linked semiflexible polymers
    Saamiya Syed, Fred C. MacKintosh, and Jordan L. Shivers
    The Journal of Physical Chemistry B 126, 10741–10749 (2022)
  3. compression_stiffening_fancy.png
    Compression stiffening of fibrous networks with stiff inclusions
    Jordan L. Shivers, Jingchen Feng, Anne S. G. van Oosten, Herbert LevinePaul A. Janmey, and Fred C. MacKintosh
    Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, 21037–21044 (2020)
  4. poisson_chains.png
    Nonlinear Poisson effect governed by a mechanical critical transition
    Jordan L. Shivers, Sadjad Arzash, and Fred C. MacKintosh
    Physical Review Letters 124, 038002 (2020)
  5. nonaffinity.png
    Scaling theory for mechanical critical behavior in fiber networks
    Jordan L. Shivers, Sadjad Arzash, Abhinav Sharma, and Fred C. MacKintosh
    Physical Review Letters 122, 188003 (2019)