From micron-scale soil pores to kilometer-scale ocean eddies, motion through complex environments is shaped by disorder, fluctuations, gradients, and interactions. We draw on fluid dynamics, soft matter physics, and nonequilibrium statistical physics to understand how microscopic dynamics give rise to large-scale transport and mechanics.

Our current research focuses on three themes:

1- Soft and active matter in complex flows: We study bacteria, biofilms, colloids, and active particles in confined and heterogeneous flows, where boundaries, hydrodynamic interactions, and chemical landscapes reshape trajectories and dispersion.

2- Transport in living and biological networks: We investigate how feedback between flow, structure, and growth drives self-organization in decentralized systems such as vascular networks and microbial communities.

3- Vortical transport at the ocean surface: We examine how eddies organize, fragment, and redistribute passive/active floating matter, including droplets, colloids, bacteria and algae at fluid interfaces.

Across these problems, we combine microfluidic and table-top experiments, numerical simulations, and theoretical modeling to identify governing mechanisms and develop coarse-grained descriptions of complex transport.

We organize a weekly seminar series on soft, fluid, living matter at Yale (link).