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 study the dynamics of biological condensates in developing organisms.
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
I’m always excited to discuss new ideas and potential collaborations. Feel free to reach out if you’re interested in my research!
news
16 Oct 2024 | I gave a talk about my work on critical composites at the 95th Annual Meeting of The Society of Rheology in Austin, TX. |
---|---|
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. |