Research Area
Condensed Matter Physics
Research Type
Theorist
Current Projects
Stochastic processes, asymptotic analysis and other approaches and methods from modern applied mathematics and physics, along with numerical simulations to probe a broad range of problems including the microscopic theory of melting, the mechanisms underlying cosmogony, climate dynamics, information theory and turbulence.
Links
- Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
- Department of Applied Mathematics
- Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics
Research
I am trained as a condensed matter theorist and have a wide variety of research interests in soft matter, statistical physics and applied mathematics. I am interested in trying to construct simple but observationally constrained theories and analogue experiments for complex phenomena in nonlinear dynamics, fluid dynamics, astrophysics, biophysics and geophysics – particularly rapid climate change. The scales of interest range from atomic to astronomical units. I collaborate with a people from many disciplines and my students and post docs come to Yale from departments of engineering, physics and applied mathematics.
Research Website
Education
Ph.D. University of Washington, 1991
Honors & Awards
2021 - Member, Nobel Committee for Physics
2021 Member, Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering
2019 Fellow of the American Geophysical Union
2015 Member, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (Physics Class III)
2013 Royal Society of London Wolfson Research Merit Award
2014 Plenary Speaker, Inter’l Conference on the Physics & Chemistry of Ice
2013 John Carlson Lecturer, Lorenz Center, MIT
2012 Tage Erlander Professor
2010-11 John Simon Guggenheim Fellow
2010 OCCAM Visiting Fellow, Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford
2007 Houghton Lecturer, MIT
2005 Visiting Fellow Commoner, Trinity College, Cambridge
2003 Fellow of the American Physical Society
1999 The Japanese Society for Promotion of Science Visiting Professor
1996 Research Faculty Fellowship, University of Washington
1985 Sigma Pi Sigma; American Institute of Physics National Honor Society