Group
Roseanna Zia
Associate Professor
Roseanna Zia
Associate Professor
Roseanna is the principal investigator of the Zia research group. Her research aims to unify mesoscale physics and chemistry with cellular-level biology through novel theoretical modeling and large-scale computational simulations. See her research page and bio page for more details.
Jae Hwan Jeong
Postdoctoral Scholar
Emma Gonzalez
Graduate Student
Brian K. Ryu
Graduate Student
Alp M. Sunol
Graduate Student
Jen Hofmann
Graduate Student
Theo Yang
Graduate Student
Nomi
Dog-toral Student
Jae Hwan Jeong
Postdoctoral Scholar
Jae Hwan is a postdoctoral scholar studying the role of hydrodynamic interactions and size polydispersity in diverse colloidal suspensions. He focuses on implementing size polydispersity into our computational model, Massively Parallelized Accelerated Stokesian Dynamics, to handle a large number of polydisperse particles and their many-body interactions present in many colloidal systems. Outside of lab, he enjoys outdoor activities such as working out at the gym, playing tennis, and traveling!
Emma Gonzalez
Graduate Student
Emma's work supports our group's challenge to understand the physics inside living cells. Our approach is to model the dynamics of a confined polydisperse suspension – a model cell – via non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and low-Reynolds number hydrodynamics theory, which is leveraged in our Confined Stokesian Dynamics algorithm. Her goal is to develop hydrodynamic theory that will allow us to model non-equilibrium physical processes present in the cell milieu.
Brian K. Ryu
Graduate Student
Brian is studying time-dependent thermodynamic phase behavior of colloidal materials. By dynamically controlling states by tuning interparticle potentials and executing quench-anneal protocols, he envisions that a wide range of new materials can be created. When he is not researching and practicing colloid physics, Brian researches and practices various ways to cook meat, hoping to be a connoisseur of meat one day.
Alp M. Sunol
Graduate Student
Alp develops physics-based computational models to study how colloidal scale interactions at different biological conditions affect spatial organization and transport dynamics of molecules inside cells. When not researching how physics at the microscopic level impacts cellular fitness, he enjoys other forms of fitness such as the gym, pickup soccer and basketball, and long walks on the beach.
Jen Hofmann
Graduate Student
Jen's research focuses on how colloidal-scale physics inform and orchestrate biological processes inside of cells. In particular, she's interested in coarse-graining macromolecular interactions for increased biofidelity of dynamic colloidal simulations, with which we can probe biological processes at long time-scales while maintaining spatial resolution. Outside of lab, she loves cooking and baking new things, watching soccer, and hiking with her dog!
Theo Yang
Graduate Student
Theo is a PhD student working jointly with Professors Roseanna Zia in Chemical Engineering and Dan Jarosz in the School of Medicine. He is interested in the biophysical factors that underlie protein aggregation in eukaryotic cells. Specifically, he is interested in developing colloidal simulations and experimental methods for understanding how the phase behavior of protein condensates at long biological time scales informs cellular stress adaptation and the development of prions. Outside of lab, Theo likes playing soccer and reading sci-fi.
Nomi
Dog-toral Student
Nomi is in her second year as the Zia Lab's resident pup -- she enjoys learning new tricks, playing with her friends, and anything that gets her thinking! She's especially interested in studying the fluid mechanics of dog lapping (Gart et al., PNAS, 2015) and the genetics of dog coat coloration (Saif et al., Adv Life Sci, 2020).
Past Post-Doctoral Associates
- Dr. Monica E. A. Zakhari, currently Assistant Professor at Eindhoven University of Technology
- Dr. Nicholas J. Hoh, currently Senior Data Scientist at Intuit
- Dr. Poornima Padmanabhan, currently Assistant Professor at Rochester Institute of Technology
Past Graduate Students
- Dr. Akshay J. Maheshwari, currently in medical school at Stanford University
- Dr. J. Galen Wang, currently a Research Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs
- Dr. Derek E. Huang, currently a postdoctoral scholar at the National Institute of Standards and Technology
- Dr. Benjamin E. Dolata, currently a postdoctoral scholar at the National Institute of Standards and Technology
- Dr. Lilian C. Johnson, currently a postdoctoral scholar at the National Institute of Standards and Technology
- Dr. Christian Aponte-Rivera, currently a postdoctoral scholar at Duke University
- Dr. Henry Chu, currently Assistant Professor at the University of Florida
- Dr. Benjamin Landrum, currently at Beeswax
- Dr. Ritesh P. Mohanty, currently a Senior Scientist at Corning
- Dr. Yu Su, currently a Senior Scientist at Google
