Alfredo Alexander-Katz

Research

Professor Alfredo Alexander-Katz’s interests lie in self-assembly and the dynamics of biological and bio-inspired soft-materials using a combination of analytical theory, simulations, and experiments. His group is focused on designer 3D self-assembly of copolymers to create custom nanostructure materials with intricate and novel morphologies. Other major topics are understanding bio-inspired random heteropolymers as protein mimetic macromolecules and understanding and controlling the phases of active soft matter. The research in Professor Alexander-Katz’s group is highly interdisciplinary and lies at the interface of materials, biology, physics, chemistry, and medicine.

Biography

Professor Alexander-Katz earned a BS in physics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 1998 and his PhD in physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2004. His PhD work focused on understanding the self-assembly of copolymers using novel field-theoretical methods. As an National Science Foundation International Postdoctoral Fellow, he moved to Munich, Germany, to study the dynamics of driven polymers. His work there led to an important discovery that unraveled the mystery behind the process of blood clotting at high shear rates and opened new routes for the development of novel shear responsive materials. He later moved to the École Supérieure de Physique et Chimie Industrielle in Paris as a CNRS postdoctoral researcher to study charged polymer solutions and their self-assembly with direct applications to fuel cells.