Soft matter mechanics across scales

Plummer Research Group

Snapshots of research on puckered surfaces, swelling hydrogels, and ecological competition in fluid flow.

We are a new group in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Boston University. Our goal is to develop simple, broadly applicable models that can be used to understand and control complex physical phenomena. We work on a wide variety of topics spanning both solid and fluid mechanics motivated by applications to human health, materials science, and geophysics. Topics of particular interest include growth/swelling, instabilities, fracture/failure, and phase transitions.

We are a theoretical/computational group with an experimental lab—group members design experiments to explore their calculations and simulations as well as develop models to explain and predict behavior of their experimental systems.

News

[April 2024] Mankrit receives a UROP award and Azul receives a STARS award to continue their research projects over the summer. Congrats, Mankrit and Azul!

[Feb 2024] Registration is open for Fracture across fields: insights from materials science, biology, and geophysics, a PCTS workshop organized by Abby, Andrej Košmrlj, John Kolinski, Ching-Yao Lai, and Reza Moini.

[Jan 2024] Abby arrives at Boston University!