Computational Soft Matter Lab: People

Erik Luijten

Professor Erik Luijten studied physics in The Netherlands, where he received his MSc from the Institute for Theoretical Physics at Utrecht University (with Prof. Henk van Beijeren) and his PhD (cum laude) from Delft University of Technology in 1997 (with Prof. Henk Blöte). He has worked as a postdoctoral research associate at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research and the University of Mainz, Germany, with Prof. Kurt Binder and at the Institute for Physical Science and Technology of the University of Maryland, with Prof. Michael E. Fisher and Prof. Athanassios Panagiotopoulos. From 2001 to 2008 he was an assistant professor and later associate professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and (by courtesy) the Department of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Since January 2009 he holds a joint position in the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering and Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics at Northwestern University. After serving as director of the Applied Physics Graduate Program from 2011 until 2016, he is currently the chair of the department of Materials Science and Engineering.

Professor Luijten's research interests encompass a wide range of topics, with an emphasis on collective behavior in complex fluids and soft condensed-matter systems. Recent work includes colloidal self-assembly, nanoparticles for gene delivery purposes, bacterial self-organization, and data analysis for gravitational-wave detectors. These topics are generally studied via large-scale computer simulations. More details can be found on the CSML research page.

Professor Luijten received the 2003 IAPWS Helmholtz Award in recognition of “Fundamental and innovative contributions enhancing the state of the art of computer simulations of theoretical models that are directly relevant to the critical and phase behaviour of aqueous systems.” He also received an NSF CAREER Award (2004) and a Xerox Award for Faculty Research (2006). In 2013 he was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society.
luijten@northwestern.edu | (847) 491-4097

Tine Curk
Postdoctoral Researcher
2019-

Tine grew up in Slovenia, a small country of only 2 million people. He obtained B.Sc. and M.Sc. in physics (summa cum laude), both from the University of Maribor, Slovenia. He joined the group of prof. Daan Frenkel where he studied statistical physics of multivalent interactions and received his PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2016. Later he had teaching (University of Maribor) and postdoc (Institute of Physics, Chinese academy of Sciences) positions working on bioinformatics of genome detection and physics of DNA packing in viruses.
His expertise lies in statistical physics and numerical methods, he also very much enjoys working with experimentalists.

Tine joined CSML in January 2019 to study charge transport effects in nano fluidics, charge regulation and self assembly.

Among other things, Tine enjoys racquet sports, Chinese food, reading and listening to good music.
curk@northwestern.edu | (847) 467-1703

Ziwei Wang
Graduate Student
2015-

Ziwei grew up in Tangshan, Hebei province of China. She graduated from Zhiyuan College at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) with a B.S. in physics. Her undergraduate thesis work, conducted under Prof. Jie Zhang, focused on the experimental study of granular avalanches, and was awarded the prize of 2015 Excellent Bachelor Thesis (Top 1%) of SJTU. Also, she was honored 'The Chun-Tsung Scholar' and the 2015 Zhiyuan Outstanding Student Scholarship of SJTU. Ziwei has been part of the CSML since September 2015 and is pursuing a Ph.D. in Applied Physics at Northwestern University. Her research projects focus on simulation study of shape anisotropy and electrostatics in self-assembly of colloidal particles. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking, yoga and traveling.
ZiweiWang2015@u.northwestern.edu | (847) 467-1703

Ian Madden
Graduate Student
2016-

Ian grew up in both the U.S. and abroad having spent grade school in China. He graduated from Boston College with a B.S. degree in both Physics and Chemistry. In Undergraduate he worked in the physical chemistry lab of Prof. Dunwei Wang performing experimental research. Upon admission to Northwestern's Ph.D. in Materials Science program in 2016, Ian has chosen to focus on computation and joined the CSML. He is currently interested in the behavior of granular matter and dielectric systems.

Outside of Academica, Ian enjoys jazz, cooking, and adventure sports such as skiing, climbing, and scuba diving.
IanMadden2020@u.northwestern.edu | (847) 467-1703

Weihua Lei
Graduate Student
2017-

Weihua came from Fujian, southern China. He got his B.S. degrees in physics from Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), Shenzhen, China. In September 2017, Weihua started his Ph.D. in Department of Physic and Astronomy at Northwestern University. Before joining the CSML, he worked on experimental condensed matter physics. His current research focuses on modeling soft matter systems and understanding their underlying physics.

weihualei2017@u.northwestern.edu | (847) 467-1703

Garrett Watson
Graduate Student
2018-

Garrett, from Tampa, Florida, is a PhD student in the Materials Science and Engineering department. He graduated with a B.S. in Physics from MIT with a minor in comparative media studies. Garrett is fascinated by the predictive power in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, and is seeking to further our understanding of fundamental concepts to unexplored phenomena. Outside of his quantitative analysis', Garrett is an avid reader, often choosing biographies or critical essays. When the weather is nice he enjoys a competitive game of tennis or going for a run.
garrettwatson2023@u.northwestern.edu | (847) 467-1703

Max Meirow
Graduate Student
2018-

Max grew up in Waterford, Michigan and Concord, North Carolina. In 2018, he graduated from Denison University in Granville, Ohio with a B.S. degree in Chemistry. During that time, he worked for two summers in the structural biology laboratory of Prof. Dr. Caroline Kisker at the Rudolf Virchow Center for Experimental Biomedicine at the University of Würzburg. Additionally, he completed a Bachelor's Thesis with Departmental Recognition in the lab of Dr. Michael Fuson, studying the local dynamics of isotactic polystyrene in semi-dilute solution by atomistic molecular dynamics simulations. Max entered Northwestern University in Fall 2018 as a Ph.D. student in the Department of Chemistry. He joined the CSML shortly thereafter, where his current research interests include the simulation of various polyelectrolyte systems. In his free time, Max likes to relax by practicing the violin, going on walks, and attending performances throughout Evanston and Chicago.
meirow@u.northwestern.edu | (847) 467-1703

Ryan Franks
Undergraduate Student

Ryan grew up in a town in Illinois near Evanston. He is pursuing a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern and joined the CSML in the winter of 2015. His research focuses on self assembly in spherical nucleic acids. When he's free, he enjoys algorithmic artwork and philosophy.
RyanFranks2019@u.northwestern.edu | (847) 467-1703

Shiv Subrahmanian
Undergraduate Student

Shiv grew up in Singapore and is currently an undergraduate student pursuing a B.S. in Applied Mathematics and a B.A. in Physics. He joined the CSML in winter of 2018 and has focused primarily on Monte Carlo simulations of molecular systems. In his free time he enjoys going to concerts, playing video games, and traveling.
shivsubrahmanian2019@u.northwestern.edu | (847) 467-1703

Past Members

Former Postdocs

Kipton Barros
Permanent Staff Member
Los Alamos National Labs

Angelo Cacciuto
Assistant Professor of Chemistry—Columbia University

Aegyeong Cheong

Meenakshi Dutt
Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering—Rutgers University

Pai-Yi Hsiao
Associate Professor of Engineering and System Science—National Tsinghua University

Hanne Antila
Postdoctoral Researcher—Max Planck Institute

Former Graduate Students

Stephen Barr

Bernard Beckerman
Uptake—Data Scientist

Moses Bloom
Precision Castparts

Camilo Guáqueta
Athena Health

Ming Han
Postdoc
University of Chicago

Jaewook Lee
Visiting Student

Jiwen Liu
HSBC Securities

Lei Guo
Goldman Sachs—Analyst

Holger Meßingfeld
Piraeus Bank

Amelia Plunk
Northwestern University

Homayoon (Amir) Maghsoodi

Stefanos Papanikolaou
Assistant Professor
Johns Hopkins University

Wei Qu
Citi Bank

Cyrus Ramavarapu
University of Pittsburgh

Wonki Roh
Samsung

Daniel Sinkovits
University of Wisconsin-Stout

Jonathan Whitmer
Assistant Professor
University of Notre Dame

Alex Winkler
Visiting Student

Huanxin Wu
J. P. Morgan

Zonghui Wei
Data Scientist
SparkBeyond

Former Undergraduate Students

Victoria Nelson

Connor Eck