Chemical cues shape the transport of colloids and bacteria across complex terrains

Amir Pahlavan is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science at Yale University.

Abstract: To navigate their environment, bacteria follow chemical cues in search of nutrients or new territories. Similarly, colloids migrate in response to chemical gradients. Our understanding of chemotactic/phoretic migration of bacteria and colloids in idealized environments, and in the absence of flows has significantly improved over the last decade. However, there is a need to understand how colloids and bacteria disperse in complex and dynamic environments representative of biological tissues and subsurface flows, where the role of chemotaxis/phoresis remains unclear. In this talk, we will explore how chemical gradients shape the transport of colloids and bacteria across porous environments.

About: Amir joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at Yale as an Assistant Professor in July 2021. He earned his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, and then moved to Princeton University as a postdoc, working in the areas of interfacial flows, transport phenomena and microscale hydrodynamics. Inspired by geophysical and biological flows, his lab explores a range of problems on active and passive transport phenomena in complex environments.