Chromatin Dynamics
My work on chromatin dynamics focuses on understanding how the interplay of polymer physics, nuclear organization, and active processes shapes the large-scale motion and conformations of the genome. In earlier work, I developed coarse-grained polymer models constrained by live-cell microscopy data to identify chromatin loops and domains directly from experimental trajectories. This allowed us to extract in vivo structural organization from noisy, finite-length single-particle tracking data, revealing the statistical signatures of dynamical organization in chromatin.
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In our recent work on active chromatin, we introduced a framework that couples Rouse-like polymer dynamics with heterogeneous, ATP-driven active forces. Using this model, we have shown that spatial heterogeneity in activity can generate localized dynamical domains and non-equilibrium steady states with tunable relaxation spectra. This approach offers a quantitative route to connect measurable dynamical transitions in the nucleus—such as those induced by ATP depletion—to underlying physical parameters of chromatin organization.
Glassy and Jammed Systems
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My work on glassy systems bridges thermodynamics, geometry, and dynamics to understand how amorphous solids form, evolve, and jam. Using a combination of analytical theory, exact models, and numerical methods, I have addressed fundamental questions on the nature of metastability, the structure of the energy landscape, and the protocol dependence of amorphous packing.
​ By developing geometric–combinatorial tiling frameworks and exact transfer-matrix solutions, I have mapped the complete jamming landscape for confined systems—quantifying exactly the configurational entropy for a non-trivial quasi one dimensional model liquid, equation of state, and the interplay between equilibrium liquids and jammed packings.
​​To understand the statistical mechanics packings, I introduced a method to measure basin-of-attraction volumes, revealing that packing probabilities are dominated by the far-field geometry of basins rather than their narrow cores. I have also derived kinetically constrained models directly from microscopic partition functions, enabling exact calculations of multi-point correlations and making fragility and relaxation properties analytically accessible.
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Together, these studies establish a unified statistical-mechanical picture that connects equilibrium fluid structure, energy landscapes, and the emergence of glassy and jammed states.