Research

We study how complex collective behavior arises from the physical interactions of individual cells combined with internal regulatory processes and environmental feedback — a question at the interface of statistical physics, nonlinear dynamics, and quantitative biology. Using agent-based simulations, continuum theory, and stochastic modeling, we connect cell-level processes to the dynamics of colonies, tissues, and tumors.

Our current main focus is the statistical physics of proliferating multicellular systems, complemented by long-standing interests in bacterial populations, cardiac excitable media, and epidemic dynamics. Much of this work relies on our open-source simulation software.

Three-dimensional cell spheroids showing motility-induced mixing, from lineage-confined (left) to fully mixed (right) as motility increases

Statistical mechanics of proliferation

Cell division is one of the most fundamental activities of life, yet the collective physics it generates is far less understood than motility-driven active matter. We build a statistical-physics description of growing, dividing tissues, uncovering sharp transitions in mixing, phase separation, and mechanical competition — with direct relevance to tumor invasion and tissue mechanics.

Growing cell colonies colored by orientation, showing how particle tip shape controls nematic order

Orientational order and mechanical self-organization

When cells grow, divide and move in confinement, they can self-organize into ordered, nematic patterns. Using large-scale simulations, we show how growth-induced stresses, cell shape, and confinement geometry can be used to predict and control this orientational order.

Time-lapse fluorescence images of a bacterial colony developing metabolic layering (13.4–14.7 h)

Control, patterns, and resistance in bacterial populations

Bacteria coordinate through chemical signals, mechanical forces, and metabolic gradients. Combining synthetic biology with quantitative modeling, we study population-level oscillations, spatial metabolic patterns, and how these shape antibiotic resistance and evolutionary dynamics.

Optical mapping of rotating spiral waves in cardiac tissue

Dynamics and control of cardiac excitable media

The heart is an excitable medium in which rotating spiral waves drive life-threatening arrhythmias. Our work established how curved tissue boundaries nucleate waves under electric fields — the basis for low-energy defibrillation — and continues through collaborations on the dynamics and control of fibrillation.

Spatial map of a local epidemic containment strategy

Epidemic dynamics: Stochastic spreading and spatial control

Epidemic models often ignore spatial structure and stochastic fluctuations, yet these decide whether local outbreaks grow into pandemics. We showed that population subdivision reshapes outbreak probabilities and that geographically targeted measures can contain an epidemic with far fewer total restrictions.