I’m a grad student at UC Santa Barbara in the Marchetti group. My work broadly encompasses the mechanics and patterning of cells and tissues. I’m currently playing with modelling nematic cells growing atop nematic substrates inspired by the wonderful work by Yimin Luo. In the past I’ve attempted theoretical and computational Epithelial Rheology in collaboration with the Pruitt Lab. Before starting my PhD I studied spatiotemporal interaction dynamics of E. Coli. and temperate lambda phages; Autonomous Boolean Network formalism of chemomechanical regulatory networks involved in bone remodelling; and detection of mu-neutrinos in Liq-Ar Time Projection Chambers.

I am interested in understanding the physics of biology. Why do living systems behave the way they do? I was trained as an Engineering Physicist at IIT-Bombay—neither an engineer nor a physicist but a secret third confluence of the two.