About

1. Who are you? What do you do for a living?
2. Why do you blog? What kinds of things do you write about?
3. How was this blog designed?
4. What categories do your posts fall under?
5. What kinds of blogs do you read?
6. How can I get in touch with you?

About Me

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 spent four years at the University of Pennsylvania, where I graduated from in May 2008 with a B.A. in Mathematics and Physics (with honors) and a M.S. in Physics.

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
• Neural networks, information theory, and cognitive science
• Using mathematics to study physical, biological, financial and socioeconomic systems
• The philosophical/sociological history of ideas, particularly those dealing with mathematics and the sciences
• Physics education

You can learn more about me, my work, and some of the work that I follow at my website. 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!

In brief, my own research (in Dave Weitz’s group at Harvard) focuses on trying to understand the structure and dynamics of various model colloidal and biological systems. 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 individual cells and multicellular systems, with the goal of learning more about how they interact with each other and with their environment.

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 (and now, blogging).

Why I Blog, And What I Blog About

The short answer: To keep track of interesting papers/ideas I come across that are not directly related to my own research.

I’ve been dabbling with online creations for as long as I can remember now – I think I was thirteen when I made my first website with the help of HTML for dummies, and I created my first blog in high school. While I doubt anyone actually read it other than myself, one or two close friends, and random web visitors, it was useful for me as an angsty teen trying to figure out life, the universe, and everything. Among other things, it helped me write better, to think things through, and to experiment with different ways of expressing myself. Anyway, it served its purpose, and I eventually dropped it after a year or so. The fascination with different forms of media and expression remained, however, and all this fuss over Web 2.0 just makes it all the more exciting. As they say, the machine is us/ing us.

The point is that this blog is just another manifestation of my desire to explore and use different forms of expression as a means of organizing my thoughts. It’s more insular than most other blogs: I blog primarily for myself. Blogging is a way for me to keep track of interesting ideas, concepts or events that I come across (that are not directly related to my own research – I keep my own notes for that) more than it is a means for communicating these things to others – although part of the reason for putting all this online is so others can benefit, participate, and collaborate, à la Web 2.0. (I initially was going to set up a wiki for the purpose, but blogging seemed less impersonal.) It’s a win-win situation, and the closest thing I can find is Cosma Shalizi’s Online Notebooks. He says it best:

They’re, well, notebooks — things I find amusing, outrageous, strange or otherwise noteworthy; notes towards works-in-glacial-progress; hemi-demi-semi-rants; things I want to learn more about; lists of references… If you can help with any of these, I’d be grateful; if you can tell me of anything I can profitably prune, I’d be even more grateful.

Other Details

This blog is designed around a heavily modified version of the Cutline theme for WordPress. The header is based off this image, which is a beautiful view of the compound eye of the Antarctic krill Euphausia superba by Gerd Alberti and Uwe Kils.

Post Categories

I tend not to blog about my own work, or things (papers, talks, etc.) directly related to my own work. However, I find many other things fascinating. These include:

Academia / Artificial Intelligence / Astrophysics / Biophysics / Book Review / Carbon Nanotubes / Classes / Computational Neuroscience / Condensed Matter Physics / Design / Education / Electronic Liquid Crystals / Entertainment / Film / Funding / General / History of Science / Humor / Interdisciplinary / Journals / Liquid Crystals / Magnetism / Mathematical Biology / Media / Models / Nanoscale Science / Nanotechnology / Neural Networks / Papers / People / Philadelphia / Photonics / Physics / Prizes and Honors / Quantum Mechanics / Science / Skepticism / Social Science / Sociology / Spintronics / Statistics / STM / Superconductivity / Technology / Websites

Blogroll

An American Physics Student in England / Angry Physics / Arcane Gazebo / bbgm / bit-player / Biocurious / Carbon-Based Curiosities / Chem Bark / Cocktail Party Physics / Coherence* / Confused At A Higher Level / Coffee Talk / Cosmic Variance / Daily Dose of Imagery / The Daily Photon / dataisnature / Ed Boyden / Ergodicity / Everyday Scientist / Female Science Professor / From The Bench / Imaginary Potential / Incoherently Scattered Ponderings / Information Esthetics / Interconnected / Kottke / Lab Life / Martyn Amos / McSweeney’s Internet Tendency / MicrobiologyBites / Mind the Gap / Mixed States / musecumulus / Nanoarchitecture / Nanoscale Views / Perfectly Reasonable Deviations / Planet Musings / Presentation Zen / Quantized Space / Quantum Chaotic Thoughts / Simplicity / Soft Machines / Structure + Strangeness / Text Message in a Bottle / The Chem Cycle / The Futile Cycle / The Quantum Pontiff / Three-Toed Sloth / Uncertain Principles / xkcd

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