Who are you? What do you do for a living?
My name is Sujit Datta. I am a Ph.D. student in Physics at Harvard University. I am also pursuing the Ph.D. track in Engineering and Physical Biology, which is a cool new multidisciplinary approach to Physical Biology at Harvard. I was previously at the University of Pennsylvania, where I received a B.A. in Mathematics and Physics (with honors) and a M.S. in Physics.

What kind of things are you interested in?
Very broadly, my scientific interests include - but are not restricted to - condensed matter and materials physics, biology/bioengineering, and chemistry/chemical engineering. More specifically, I find any combination of the following exciting:

  • Condensed matter physics, particularly of soft materials; this includes colloidal physics, granular physics and the physics of disordered systems, polymer physics, and the physics of fluids
  • Statistical mechanics and thermodynamics, particularly the non-equilibrium kind
  • Biological physics and systems biology
  • Ecology, evolution, and population biology
  • Micro- and nano- science and technology
  • Optics and advanced microscopy techniques
  • Information theory, neural networks, and cognitive science
  • The physics of financial and/or socioeconomic systems
  • The philosophical/sociological history of ideas, particularly those dealing with mathematics and the sciences
  • Physics education
You can explore some of the work that I follow from my links page. I enjoy learning about what other people do, so if you work on something in any of these categories, want to discuss any cool ideas or just want to talk science, send me an email!

My non-academic interests include heated pseudo-intellectual discussions, traveling, walking/hiking/cycling, squash, amateur photography, good books, artsy movies, good music, and poetry/prose.

What is the subject of your current research?
I discovered the fascinating world of soft condensed matter not too long ago, and am hooked. I am particularly interested in better understanding the structure and dynamics of various states of matter, and study these using model colloidal and biological systems in Prof. Dave Weitz's group at Harvard. On the colloidal side of things, I'm currently studying the basic physics of solid-stabilized emulsions - kinetically-stable, versus thermodynamically-stable, mixtures of (mostly) fluid that can have striking mechanical properties when in a highly concentrated 'jammed' state. On the biological side of things, I'm currently studying the structure and mechanics of the biopolymers within cells, individual cells, and multicellular systems, with the goal of learning more about how they interact with each other and with their environment. Details of this work are forthcoming.

What else have you worked on?
As an undergraduate at Penn, I spent a few years having lots of fun learning about nanoscale phenomena and studying the biochemical, structural and electronic properties of few-layer graphene, carbon nanotubes and nanotube-derived structures in Prof. Alan T. Charlie Johnson's group. In particular, I used micro- and nano-fabrication techniques - such as optical/electron-beam lithography, wet/dry etching, and chemical vapor deposition - for fabrication, and scanning probe microscopy (SPM) techniques - such as atomic force microscopy (AFM) and electrostatic force microscopy (EFM) - for structural and electronic characterization. I spent a significant amount of time developing new forms of SPM with the goal of elucidating interesting properties of these nanoscale structures, and also combined my experimental research with finite-element simulations to further understand and motivate experimental work. I wrote or co-authored a number of publications describing many of my results - further details can be found on my research page.

I have received a number of awards for my work, including most recently the LeRoy Apker Award in Physics from the American Physical Society. More details can be found in my curriculum vitae, available upon request.

I can be contacted via email, or on facebook.

Feeling generous? Check out my Amazon Wishlist.

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