Soft Matter, Biological and Statistical Physics
Research Group
Ali Naji
| Current Position: |
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since 2011 Associate Professor, School of Physics,
Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM), Tehran, Iran |
| Academic Associations: |
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since 2011 Newton International Fellowship Alumni (10-year package),
The Royal Society, The British Academy of Engineering, and The British Academy, UK - Associated with Dept. of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, UK from 2015 ICTP Associate Member (5-year package), The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, Italy |
| Education: |
|
2001-2005 Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics
(Soft Matter and Statistical Physics),
Ludwig
Maximilian University, Munich, Germany 2000-2001 Diploma in Condensed Matter Physics, The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy 1998-2000 M.Sc. in Physics, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran 1994-1998 B.Sc. in Physics, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran |
| Postdoctoral Research Experience: |
|
04/2010 - 05/2011 Newton International Fellow,
Dept. of Applied
Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP), Centre for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge, UK 05/2009 - 03/2010 Newton International Fellow, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sheffield, UK 12/2005 - 01/2009 Postdoctoral Research Scholar jointly at Dept. of Chemistry & Biochemistry, Dept. of Physics, and Materials Research Laboratory, University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), USA |
| Awards: |
|
2015
Associate Membership Grant (5-year package), The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, Italy ` 2011 Newton International Fellowship Alumni (10-year package), The Royal Society, The British Academy of Engineering, and The British Academy, UK 2008 Newton International Fellowship Award, The Royal Society, The British Academy of Engineering, and The British Academy, UK 2000 Diploma Scholarship, The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, Italy |
| Research Interest: |
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- Current research topics: Physics of Coulomb fluids and strongly coupled soft matter such as highly charged colloids, polymers and membranes, electrostatics of virus-like nano-capsids, electrostatics of DNA and DNA complexes, like-charge attraction phenomena, Casimir effect, charged disordered systems, disordered liquid-crystalline films and, more recently, also physics of active matter, specifically, nano-swimmers and self-propelled colloids and bacteria - Previous research topics: Diffusion on ruffled biological and elastic membranes, charged polymer brushes, charged polymer multilayers, electrophoresis of DNA - Methods of research include advanced analytical methods (e.g., techniques of equilibrium and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and statistical field theory) as well as extensive numerical simulation techniques (e.g., Monte-Carlo, Brownian Dynamics and Hydrodynamic simulations) |
| Publications Highlights (see complete list of publications here) |
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Publication and citation record can be
viewed at: ISI ResearcherID: http://www.researcherid.com/ Google Scholar profile: http://scholar.google.com/ ResearchGate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/ - Total citations: 1712 / H-index: 24 (ISI Web of Knowledge, Oct. 2018) - Published more than 53 papers (since 2003) in peer-reviewed international journals of highest standing, 4 book chapters, and co-edited a major book on “Electrostatics of Soft and Disordered Matter” (Pan Stanford Publishing, 2014) - Published several invited review papers, including highly cited reviews in Physics Reports (more than 180 citations), Physica A (more than 100 citations), Advances in Polymer Science (more than 49 citations), a recent Perspective article in the Journal of Chemical Physics and an invited review in preparation for Reports on Progress in Physics (2015) - Journal publications also include 5 papers in Physical Review Letters (“the world's foremost physics letters journal”) and other top Soft Matter and Biophysics journals including Macromolecules (ranked #1 by ISI in total citations in the category of polymer science), Journal of Physical Chemistry B (ranked #1 in total citations in the category of physical chemistry), Journal of Chemical Physics (most highly cited journal in atomic, molecular & chemical physics), altogether more than 24 papers published in high-impact journals (Impact Factor > 3) including also Soft Matter, Biophysical Journal, Physical Review A, and Physical Review B - Our research has been highlight by various professional and public media, including the American Institute of Physics, Springer, Science Daily, PhysOrg, Europhysics News, etc, and, recently, also by the Financial Times. For a list of recent news and highlights on our publications, please see our News page |
| Research Highlights (see complete list of publications here) |
|
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Contributed significantly to the development of the
strong-coupling theory of charged soft matter such as highly charged colloids, polymers, membranes and Coulomb fluids (see, e.g., Phys. Rep. 416, 129 (2005) and the recent invited Perspective article J. Chem. Phys. 139, 150901 (2013) written for JCP Spotlight Collections) - Contributed significantly to the understanding of charge disorder phenomena as a new paradigm in charged soft matter and also within the context of Casimir effect (see, e.g., the recent book "Electrostatics of Soft and Disordered Matter” by Pan Stanford Publishing, 2014, and recent highlights in our News page) - Developed novel hybrid numerical strategies to simulate dynamics of mesoscopic objects coupled to a background fluctuating field such as the diffusion of inclusions within biological membranes (see Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 138102 (2009)) - Contributed to the understanding of the experimentally observed electrophoresis of DNA through analytical as well as hydrodynamic simulation methods (see Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 176103 (2008)) - Predicted anomalous swelling of charged osmotic polymer brushes that was confirmed directly in experiments (see, e.g., J. Phys. Chem. B 108, 16870 (2004)) - Contributed in developing a robust model for determination of internal electrical properties of charged polymer multilayers that was successfully tested in experiments (see Macromolecules 39, 463 (2006)) - Developed a novel Monte-Carlo sampling method in order to study the counterion-condensation transition which led to the resolution of long-standing issues relating to the nature and universality class of this transition in the context of charged polymers (see Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 185703 (2005)) - Collaborated extensively with various international research groups including researchers from UCSB, UCLA, National Institutes of Health (USA), Jozef Stefan Institute and University of Ljubljana (Slovenia), University of Cambridge (UK), University of Toulouse and University of Bordeaux (France), University of Lund (Sweden), Helsinki University of Technology (Finland), Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich and Technical University of Munich (Germany), Max Planck Institute for Polymer Science (Mainz, Germany) and Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces (Potsdam, Germany), Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University of Greifswald (Germany), Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore, India), Yerevan State University (Armenia), University of Isfahan, Khajeh-Nasir Toosi University, and Sharif University of Technology (Iran) |