PEOPLE
A Collaborative & Diverse Group
AMIN DOOSTMOHAMMADI
Principal Investigator
Amin holds an Assistant Professorship at the Niels Bohr International Academy. He also has a cross-appointment as a Specially Appointed Assistant Professor at the Department of Bioengineering in Osaka University, Japan.
Before joining NBI, Amin held a Royal 1851 Research Fellowship at Oxford University's Rudolph Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics.
KRISTIAN THIJSSEN
Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow
Kristian Thijssen is a computational soft matter physicist interested in the dynamics of emergent collective phenomena and how those systems (e.g. bacteria colonies and cellular tissues) interact with reconfigurable surroundings. He obtained his MSc at the Eindhoven University of Technology, after which he did a PhD in physics under the tutelage of Julia Yeomans in Oxford. After holding a postdoctoral position under Robert Jack in Cambridge, he joined the NBI Copenhagen with a Marie-Curie fellowship.
NATASCHA LEIJNSE
Assistant Professor
Natascha holds a PhD in Biophysics from the University of Copenhagen which she obtained after finishing her MSc in Physics from RWTH Aachen University in Germany.
After a postdoc in Alexander Dunn's group at the Department of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University, she returned to the Niels Bohr Institute for another postdoc.
Natascha is interested in studying cellular dynamics using a combination of single cell manipulation and advanced imaging techniques.
ALEKSANDRA ARDASEVA
Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow
Aleksandra Ardaseva received her Ph.D. from the Mathematical Institute at the University of Oxford. Her doctoral work focused on studying evolutionary adaptation strategies of cancer cells in dynamic environments using analytical and numerical techniques. After that, she joined the Active Intelligent Matter Group where her work is focused on modelling physico-chemical coupling in active biological matter.
SIAVASH MONFARED
Postdoctoral Research Assistant
Siavash did his PhD at MIT, followed by a postdoc at Caltech. His research is at the interface of granular physics, statistical mechanics and active matter. Particularly he is interested in understanding the link between the physics of force transmission and collective self-organization in biological systems through developing theoretical models and high performance computational tools.
SAMEER KUMAR
Postdoctoral Research Assistant
Sameer's research work is focused on the theoretical study of the properties of an active system in the presence of extrinsic or intrinsic disorder in the system.
JAYEETA CHATTOPADHYAY
Postdoctoral Research Assistant
Jayeeta did her PhD studies at the Indian Institute of Science at Bangalore. At NBI she works on the collective cell integration phenomena.
BENJAMIN ANDERSEN
PhD Student
Benjamin is using a combination of numerical and analytical methods to study systems of active matter. Prior to this, Benjamin obtained both his master’s and bachelor’s degree from NBI, the former on the topic of complex systems physics and the phenomenon of fully developed turbulence in 2D as well as 3D.
VALERIIA GRUDTSYNA
PhD Student
Valeriia did her masters at Lund University. She experimentally investigates physics of collective mechanotransdcution in epithelial cells.
VARUN VENKATESH
PhD Student
Varun has obtained his masters from NBI. In his PhD he is working on the modeling of the active matter interaction with complaint substrates.
JAYEETA CHATTOPADHYAY
Postdoctoral Research Assistant
Sameer's research work is focused on the theoretical study of the properties of an active system in the presence of extrinsic or intrinsic disorder in the system.
LASSE BONN
Research Assistant
Lasse Bonn obtained his Masters degree at in the active intelligent matter group of Amin Doostmohammadi at NBIA. Since September 2022 he has been working as a research assistant in that group. His work is computational in nature using continuum modelling and focusses on topological defect unbinding in fluctuating nematics and the flow and stress patterns that these defects create.
VARUN VENKATESH
PhD Student
Salik is a biophysics graduate student at the Niels Bohr Institute, where he also did his bachelor’s degree. He will be working on a project on active nematics, using computational and analytical means to investigate self-pumping fluids.