Daphne Klotsa
Associate Professor
Murray Hall 1114
dklotsa@email.unc.edu
919-962-6454
Research Interest:
Soft Matter, Computer Simulations, Self-Assembly, Packing, Active Matter, Granular Materials
Professional Background
University of Warwick, BSc Honors, 2003; University of Warwick, MSc, 2004; University of Nottingham, Ph.D., 2009; Postdoctoral fellow, University of Bath, 2009-2011; Marie-Curie Postdoctoral International Outgoing Fellowship (IOF) 2012-2015 held at University of Michigan Ann Arbor (2011-2014), Harvard (2014), University of Cambridge (2014-2015). UNC Junior Faculty Development Award, 2018; NSF CAREER Award, 2018
Research Synopsis
Nature has perfected obtaining robust collective behavior and global order from simple local interactions. The challenge for us is to engineer similar systems at various scales that are composed of many agents, ranging from self-propelled nanoparticles in solution to cars in traffic, and to be able to control their emergent collective properties, their emergent “intelligence.” Our group does computational research on active matter and related topics in order to bridge the gap between emergent phenomena, smart materials and robot swarming.