Corey O’Hern
Soft Matter Research: Quasi-one dimensional models for glassy behavior, the connection between percolation in configuration space and glassy dynamics, statistical mechanics of static and slowly flowing granular media, jamming in systems composed of anisotropic particles and with polymer constraints
Biological Physics Research: Smart, designer, protein-based nanogels; understanding the structural and mechanical properties of epithelial cells, Nanoscale approaches to screening small molecule inhibitors of toxic amyloid species in neurogegenerative disease; protein folding and misfolding
Statistical mechanics of nonequilibrium systems such as glasses and granular materials; elasticity theories for soft materials, e.g. liquid crystals and biological materials; structural, mechanical, and dynamical properties of proteins including folding, unfolding, and aggregation.
5 recent publications:
- A. Q. Zhou, C. S. O’Hern, and L. Regan, “Revisiting the Ramachandran plot from a new angle,” Protein Science 20 (2011) 1166.
- C. F. Schreck, T. Bertrand, C. S. O’Hern, and M. D. Shattuck, “Repulsive contact interactions make jammed particulate systems inherently nonharmonic,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 107 (2011) 078301.
- R. S. Hoy and C. S. O’Hern, “Minimal energy packings and collapse of sticky tangent hard-sphere polymers,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 105 (2010) 068001.
- G. Lois, J. Blawzdziewicz, and C. S. O’Hern, “Protein folding on rugged energy landscapes: Conformational diffusion on fractal networks,” Phys. Rev. E 81 (2010) 051907.
- M. Mailman, C. Schreck, C. S. O’Hern, and B. Chakraborty, “Jamming in Systems Composed of Ellipse-Shaped Particles”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 102 (2009) 255501.