Student Highlight: Abhishek Bathina

Abhishek Bathina is currently a graduate student in Georgetown’s Physics Department. Bathina is working within the Institute for Soft Matter Synthesis and Metrology (ISMSM) in the Del Gado lab group. He was recently awarded a $5,000 COMPASS grant to fund collaborative research with groups at the University of Michigan and the University of Southern California. This award will fund study in simulation, particularly related to network topology and material properties. Del Gado’s lab is using novel techniques from network science to examine hierarchical organization in model gels to ascertain whether certain structures can be controlled to tune the material’s properties. Bathina’s current projects also include simulating and studying properties such as shear thickening in corn starch.

An initial interest in computational physics was sparked for Abhishek during his undergraduate studies at Swarthmore College where he majored in physics and cognitive science. For his research project about pedestrian dynamics, he analyzed the different patterns that were formed in a simulated model of a group of people trying to escape a room. He found similarities to this interest in soft matter, with complex systems and their simulation. He enjoys the art of determining how much detail is enough for a model to exhibit complex behavior while being simple enough to understand thoroughly.

Growing up Bathina always enjoyed science and was encouraged by his science teachers. Studying physics and cognitive science merged a lot of his interests such as language studies, math, biology, and the philosophy of mind. He particularly enjoys physics as he believes that the field is deeply motivated to answer fundamental questions thoroughly. As time goes on, he hopes that physics will become an even more interdisciplinary field drawing from numerous different subjects for its research topics and methods. After college he spent a year teaching math, physics and computer science at a high school in Philadelphia.

Since becoming involved with soft matter he has appreciated the many real life implications of the research. He cites shampoo as a prime example, pointing out that we engineer shampoo to not sediment into different layers purely due to consumer preference. He enjoys that many problems in soft matter have simple hooks that lead to more interesting and complex systems and models. Abhishek views the overarching theme of his work to be non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, which he enjoys studying for its constant demand for creative solutions. His long term motivation in his work is to help contribute to the theoretical rigor in the field.

After completing his studies Bathina eventually plans to teach but is unsure as to when and where. He is extremely passionate about teaching and hopes it will afford him the flexibility to pursue his other passions. In his spare time he is interested in music, playing guitar, synthesizers, as well as composing his own music.

He encouraged students to stay open minded and continuously be interested and inspired by your passions as courses get more specialized. He states that being proactive about course selection is the key to success. He believes that being aware of your motivations is how you will succeed as a student.