I recently left Peter Olmsted’s group in Georgetown after a very enjoyable two years. We studied the phase separation kinetics of mixed lipid bilayers, specifically the effects of inter-leaflet coupling. The Institute for Soft Matter Synthesis and Metrology is a very pleasant and stimulating place to work, and I strongly recommend it.

In the past week I’ve moved to become a postdoc in the group of Guillaume Salbreux at London’s new Francis Crick Institute. The work will concern the mechanics of tissue development and homeostasis, in close collaboration with some excellent experimentalists. The move from a sort of “physical chemistry of lipid membranes” to a more explicitly biological “physics of living systems” seems a natural step to make, and I’m looking forward to the next few years of research.

In the meantime, check out the latest paper with Peter (a comment in PRL), and look out for an upcoming collaboration with Philip Fowler.