People
The Group
Principal Investigator
Eric Dufresne
Eric joined the Cornell faculty in the summer 2023. He is a professor in the departments of Physics and Materials Sciences and Engineering, and a member of the field of Biophysics. Previously, he was a professor at ETH Zürich and Yale University. Eric is a fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of the editorial board of Physical Review X.
Postdocs
Teagan Bate
tb579@cornell.edu
Teagan studied the control of microtubule kinesin active fluid during his PhD work at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. He joined the lab in August of 2023. Now he studies the physics of bimolecular condensates, with a focus on in-vitro experiments.
Senthilkumar DuraivelSenthil got his PhD in Materials Engineering at University of Florida, specializing in soft matter additive manufacturing. He joined the lab in March 2024 and he is interested in engineering bicontinuous materials using elastic microphase separation.
Takumi earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Chicago in 2023, specializing in turbulence and complex fluids. He joined the lab in September of 2023. He currently studies the dynamics of phase-separated droplets.
Nan Xue
nx47@cornell.edu
Nan studied mechanical engineering (especially, fluid mechanics) at Tsinghua (B.S., 2015, China) and Princeton (Ph.D., 2021). Before moving with the lab to Cornell in 2023, he worked (in the lab at ETH, Zurich, Switzerland) on the fracture mechanics of elastomers.
PhD Students
Kaarthik Varma
kv244@cornell.edu
Kaarthik is a PhD student in Physics. He is from India and got his Bachelors and Masters degree from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He is interested in studying the physics and applications of swimming droplets.
Sully Bailey-Darland
Sully is a PhD student in Physics. He graduated from Oregon State University in 2023 with a degree in physics and mathematics, and is currently working on differential dynamic microscopy.
Jen Jang
wj93@cornell.edu
Jen is a PhD student in physics, originally from Korea, she got her bachelor’s degree at the University of Chicago. She is currently working on microrheology projects.
Ethan O’Banion
eeo8@cornell.edu
Ethan is a PhD student in Materials Science. He graduated from Purdue University in 2024 with a bachelor’s degree in Materials Science & Engineering. He is interested in learning about the biological and physical chemistry of soft materials’ systems.
Master’s Students
Harsha Koganti
hk796@cornell.edu
Blue Shapiro
cbs254@cornell.edu
Blue is a Master’s student in Materials Science and Engineering. He currently studies enzymic control of biomolecular condensates in vitro.
Bachelor’s Students
Calvin Smith
cms455@cornell.edu
Calvin is an undergraduate student pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Physics and Mathematics. He is interested in applications of physics and math to biological sciences. He currently studies how phase separation can be utilized for intracellular tasks.
Gabriella Bensadoun
gpb52@cornell.edu
Gabriella is an undergraduate student pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Physics. She has a broad interest in experimental biophysics and is currently studying yeast growth in phase-separated droplets.
Visiting Scientists
Charlotta Lorenz
cml353@cornell.edu
After her PhD in Physics at the University of Göttingen, Germany, specializing on the interactions of cytoskeletal biopolymers (2021), she joined the lab at ETH Zürich in 2022. She is now a Visiting Scientist in our group at Cornell and associated with Prof Benjamin Schuler’s group at the University of Zürich. She is interested in the structure of biomolecular condensates studied with X-rays.
Former Lab Visitors
Jemma Gillon
jeg367@cornell.edu
Jemma is a visiting Master’s student from ETH Zürich. She is currently looking at how the stiffness of gels affects the growth of mycelium.
Dana Matthias
dm967@cornell.edu
Dana is a visiting Master’s student from ETH Zürich. She is currently studying the phase diagrams of biomolecular condensates in the presence of different clients.