Expert Shares Latest Developments in Biophysics
09/23/2011
By
Edwin L. AguirreThe Physics Department kicked off its popular Physics Colloquium series this semester with a talk by a distinguished alumnus on Sept. 14.
Boris Shraiman, a professor of theoretical physics and biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, spoke on “Unexpected Physics in Biology” to a packed audience at Olney Hall. The series offers students, faculty and the general public a chance to hear researchers from UMass Lowell and other universities talk about topics of interest to the community.
A recently elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, Shraiman is a permanent member of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara. He received his bachelor’s degree and Ph.D. in physics from the University of Lowell in 1978 and Harvard in 1983, respectively. Before joining the Kavli Institute, Shraiman was a researcher at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J., and a faculty member at Rutgers University from 2002 to 2004.
“Dr. Shraiman has broad research interests and has made significant contributions in a number of fields, ranging from correlated electron systems to pattern formation and turbulence,” says UMass Lowell physics Prof. Emeritus Albert Altman, who was one of Shraiman’s mentors at ULowell. “His recent and current research uses physics ideas and approaches to study biological systems.”
The colloquium series, which is coordinated by Altman, are usually held on Wednesdays at 4 p.m. at Room 218 in Olney Hall. The following is a list of topics and speakers for the year:
• Sept. 21: “Nanoscale Mechanical Resonators for Probing Physical Phenomena: Fluid Dynamics and Beyond” with Kamil L. Ekinci, Boston University
• Sept. 28: “The Development of Proton Radiography Imaging for In-Room Real-Time Tumor Tracking” with João C. Seco, Harvard Medical School
• Oct. 12: “Brachytherapy Physics and Applied Research in a Medical Setting” with Mark Rivard, Tufts Medical Center
• Oct. 19: “Nanoscale Optics with Negative Metamaterials” with Srinivas Sridhar, Northeastern University
• Oct. 26: “High-Resolution Optical Coherence Tomography Imaging and Its Potential Applications to Clinical Care” with Nicursor Iftimia, Physical Sciences, Inc.
• Nov. 9: “Cold Atom Interferometry and Coherent Quasi-Optical Effects in High-Field NMR” with Alexey Tonyushkin, Harvard University
• Nov. 16: “Exploring New Frontiers of Quantum Optical Science” with Mikhail Lukin, Harvard University
• Nov. 30: “Quantum Information Processing and Metrology Using Few Electron Spins in Solids” with Amir Yacoby, Harvard University