Colloquium Series: Gaurav Arya (Duke University)

Join us for another event in the 2019-2020 Colloquium Series as APS welcomes Gaurav Arya, PhD. to present on his recent research. Dr. Arya is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Material Science at Duke University. Prior to joining Duke in Fall 2017, he was an Assistant Professor and then Associate Professor in the Department of NanoEngineering at UC San Diego. He obtained his B.Tech. degree in Chemical Engineering from IIT Bombay in 1998, and Ph.D. degree, also in Chemical Engineering, from the University of Notre Dame in 2003. He carried out his postdoctoral research at Princeton University and New York University. Professor Arya’s research focuses on the development and application of computational methods to gain a molecular-level understanding of a range of biomolecular and nanoscale systems of interest, including viral DNA packaging motors, chromatin, DNA nanotechnology, and nanoparticle-polymer composites.

Computational Modeling of Soft Nanoscale Materials: From Plasmonic Polymer Nanocomposites to Dynamic DNA Nanodevices
Nanotechnology deals with the science and engineering of functional materials and devices at the nanometer length scales. This rapidly growing field harnesses the unique properties and behavior of matter that emerge when it is confined to nanoscale dimensions. The potential applications of nanotechnology are enormous, impacting almost all aspects of our daily life. In our laboratory, we use statistical physics-based simulation methods to provide a fundamental, molecular-level understanding of nanoscale systems with the aim of discovering new phenomena and developing new materials and technologies. In this talk, I will show how we are using such computational tools to advance two different areas in soft nanotechnology: assembling polymer-embedded plasmonic nanoparticles into unique spatial arrangements relevant for optical applications and introducing dynamic mechanisms into rigid DNA origami nanostructures for applications in sensing, actuation, and engineering.