A film of liquid crystal suspended in air
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Physics helps me understand the world, motivates me to build experimental devices, visualize structure and dynamics of complicated systems, and use creativity to come up with new ideas and solve new problems. Many of my research projects focus on using microscopes and image analysis of soft materials like liquid crystals, biomembranes, surfactants, and algae.
Explore my research → |
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When teaching classes at Cal Poly, I relate ideas in physics to surfing, music, weather, biology and more. I work with a large group of student researchers on projects in soft matter physics in multiple lab locations on Cal Poly's campus. I focus not just on mentoring students on a research project or a class, but also on their future careers, education and life.
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Art and music are incredibly important outlets for my expression. In college my art concentration led my interest in making watercolors of surfing and outdoor-inspired themes. A guitarist since middle school, I have played music in multiple genres and bands, currently playing with reggae-rock band Oso Sol and psychedelic-rock band Immersion Summer. I have been involved in music production for several decades and have produced multiple albums published on streaming services. My latest project is a multimedia presentation shown in movie theaters where audience members become part of the show by submitting video clips that are synced to the live music of Immersion Summer!
Music and multimedia → |
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Being in the outdoors provides creative inspiration, keeps me revived and grounded, and provides an escape from our sometimes hectic and rapidly changing world. I try to get into nature as much as I can and pursue many activities there, including surfing, backcountry and resort snowboarding, backpacking and winter camping, whitewater kayaking, and climbing. I feel very lucky to live on the beautiful Central Coast near Big Sur and not too far from adventures in the Sierra.
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I grew up in the Washington, DC area and graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology before attending the College of William & Mary as a Monroe Scholar. There I earned a B.S. in Physics with a minor in Mathematics and a concentration in Art. Outside the classroom I played guitar in the alternative rock band Pictures of Larry, painted watercolors, and spent weekends whitewater canoeing and kayaking throughout Virginia and West Virginia.
I moved to Colorado to pursue graduate studies in physics at the University of Colorado Boulder, where I earned my M.S. and Ph.D. in the Clark Laboratory studying liquid crystals. My research resulted in publications featured on the covers of both Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. |
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Today I am a Professor of Physics at Cal Poly, where I teach undergraduate courses, mentor students in two research laboratories, and have served the department in several leadership roles, including Department Scheduler and Chair of the Tenured Faculty. Outside the university, my family enjoys surfing, hiking, backpacking, skiing, and making music together. I currently perform with the reggae-rock band Oso Sol and the psychedelic rock band Immersion Summer.
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Many of my favorite projects use microscopes that can produce beautiful images. While in graduate school at CU Boulder, my work helping discover two new phases of matter was published on the cover of Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the two most cited journals in the United States. These two phases are types of liquid crystals, the polarization-modulated smectic phase and the giant-block twist grain boundary smectic phase.
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A favorite recent project built off my postdoc work in UCSB on lung surfactant and a single liquid molecular coating called a monolayer. Using normal imaging techniques, a monolayer that is only 1 nanometer thick (one billionth of a meter) is invisible. However, a special device called a Brewster Angle Microscope (BAM) is able to image the monolayer by reflecting a polarized laser off the monolayer, which is typically deposited on the surface of water or oil. Research-grade BAM costs over $50k, which was far out of my equipment budget. Instead, my students and I designed and built a BAM out of LEGO and published our design in the American Journal of Physics. We developed a lab class lesson based around the BAM, which has become a component of the physical chemistry lab class required for all Cal Poly chemistry majors. About 1000 chemistry students have used the BAM since it's development and other universities around the world have built a similar device for their own labs.
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