{"id":25,"date":"2024-01-12T17:18:54","date_gmt":"2024-01-12T22:18:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/plummer\/?page_id=25"},"modified":"2026-02-26T08:34:58","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T13:34:58","slug":"research","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/plummer\/research\/","title":{"rendered":"Research & Publications"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brief descriptions of current areas of focus are given below. Asterisks denote equal contribution. For a complete and up-to-date list of publications, please see Google Scholar.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Mechanics of growth and swelling<\/h2>\n

Understanding the factors that either stimulate or hinder growth and expansion is relevant to many fields, including medicine, morphogenesis, and agriculture. We are particularly interested in studying how expanding or growing bodies respond to the presence of obstacles. Recently, we have focused on how hydrogels can be used as a model system to explore how stresses develop.<\/p>\n

Obstructed swelling and fracture of hydrogels<\/a>
\nAbigail Plummer*, Caroline Adkins*, Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Louf, Andrej Ko\u0161mrlj, Sujit S. Datta<\/em>
\nSoft Matter (2024), preprint link<\/a>, presentation link<\/a><\/p>\n

Chemically Nanostructured Organogel Monoliths from Cross-Linked Block Copolymers for Selective Infusion Templating<\/a>
\nYuanzhi Li, Abigail Plummer, J\u00f6rg G. Werner<\/em>
\nACS Nano (2024)<\/p>\n

Formation of a swelling gel underlies a morphological transition in Bacillus subtilis biofilms
\n<\/a>Ayantika Saha, Joshua M. Jones, Abigail Plummer, Joseph W. Larkin<\/em>
\nbioRXiv preprint<\/p>\n

\n

Metamaterials<\/h2>\n

Metamaterials produce unusual\/desirable responses through their carefully designed structure. Currently, we are primarily interested in how analogies from statistical mechanics can be used to better understand and control metamaterials composed of coupled bistable units. Such metamaterials have found applications in soft robotics, shape memory, and mechanical information processing in recent years.<\/p>\n

Buckling and metastability in membranes with dilation arrays
\n<\/a>Abigail Plummer and David R. Nelson<\/em>
\nPhysical Review E (2020) [Editor’s Suggestion], preprint link<\/a>
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

Anomalous thermal expansion in Ising-like puckered sheets
\n<\/a>Paul Z. Hanakata, Abigail Plummer, and David R. Nelson<\/em>
\nPhysical Review Letters (2022), preprint link<\/a><\/p>\n

Curvature as an external field in mechanical antiferromagnets
\n<\/a>Abigail Plummer*, Paul Z. Hanakata*, and David R. Nelson<\/em>
\nPhysical Review Materials (2022) [Editor’s Suggestion], preprint link<\/a><\/p>\n

Statistical mechanics of the flexural Ising model in D dimensions
\n<\/a>Abigail Plummer<\/em>
\narXiv preprint<\/p>\n

SLAAM seminar recording (second half)<\/a><\/p>\n

Beaded metamaterials
\n<\/a>Lauren Dreier, Trevor J. Jones, Abigail Plummer, Andrej Ko\u0161mrlj, P.-T. Brun<\/em>
\nNature Communications (2025), preprint link <\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Geosciences<\/h2>\n

Building deeper connections between soft matter and the geosciences is an exciting frontier<\/a>. We have worked on understanding how ecological competition is affected by turbulent fluid flows and have simulated instabilities in a solar tachocline model.<\/p>\n

Oceanic frontal divergence alters phytoplankton competition and distribution
\n<\/a>Abigail Plummer*, Mara Freilich*, Roberto Benzi, Chang Jae Choi, Lisa Sudek, Alexandra Z. Worden, Federico Toschi, and Amala Mahadevan<\/em>
\nJournal of Geophysical Research: Oceans (2023), preprint link<\/a><\/p>\n

Discrete Eulerian model for population genetics and dynamics under flow
\n<\/a>Giorgia Guccione, Roberto Benzi, Abigail Plummer, and Federico Toschi<\/em>
\nPhysical Review E (2019), preprint link<\/a><\/p>\n

Fixation probabilities in weakly compressible fluid flows
\n<\/a>Abigail Plummer, Roberto Benzi, David R. Nelson, and Federico Toschi<\/em>
\nProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2019), preprint link<\/a>, presentation link<\/a><\/p>\n

Joint instability and abrupt nonlinear transitions in a differentially rotating plasma
\n<\/a>Abigail Plummer, J. B. Marston, and Steven M. Tobias<\/em>
\nJournal of Plasma Physics (2019), preprint link<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brief descriptions of current areas of focus are given below. Asterisks denote equal contribution. For a complete and up-to-date list of publications, please see Google Scholar. Mechanics of growth and swelling Understanding the factors that either stimulate or hinder growth and expansion is relevant to many fields, including medicine, morphogenesis, and agriculture. We are particularly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23242,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/plummer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/plummer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/plummer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/plummer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23242"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/plummer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/plummer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":199,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/plummer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25\/revisions\/199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/plummer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}