University of Chicago Department of Chemistry’s Post

Postdoc Matthew Du of the Suri Vaikuntanathan Lab and the James Franck Institute has won the poster award at American Conference on Theoretical Chemistry in Chapel Hill, NC. According to Du, the poster, titled "Stabilizing equilibrium configurations using nonequilibrium forces inspired by active matter", showcases his work proposing new strategies to stabilize physical/chemical systems at their energy minima (or stable states) in the presence of environmental fluctuations. These strategies involve driving the system out of equilibrium, as inspired by two prominent features of active matter (i.e., systems that convert energy from their local environment into motion, such as bacteria and catalytically active colloids): self-propulsion of individual particles and nonreciprocal interactions (e.g., predator-prey interactions) between particles. The poster is based on soon-to-be-published results. Du joined JFI in 2022 as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the group of Prof. Suri Vaikuntanathan. He earned his PhD in Chemistry at UC San Diego under the advising of Prof. Joel Yuen-Zhou. His PhD research focused on the reaction-rate theory of molecules inside an optical cavity. Matthew's current research interests broadly include statistical mechanics, machine learning, and adaptive materials. The American Conference on Theoretical Chemistry (ACTC) brings together the theoretical chemistry community to discuss the latest cutting-edge research. ACTC 2024 has featured a wide range of topics within theoretical chemistry, including electronic structure, statistical mechanics, and quantum dynamics, as well as applications to biology and energy science. It has been held about every three years for half a century, and its historical origin dates back to 1951. https://lnkd.in/ghdyrvh2

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