Welcome to my research page

I am a researcher at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences. My principal research interest is to understand a class of substances which, in scientific terminology, is called soft condensed matter. Examples include liquids, foams, gels, emulsions, liquid crystals and biological matter. Even though the materials in the list appear diverse and unrelated, their physical behaviour can be understood in an unified manner through a small set of principles. The challenge for the theorist is to devise a mathematical model of the system consistent with those physical principles, and then, to work out the consequences of the model itself. My research thus requires both analytical and numerical techniques, and often, involves large-scale computation on supercomputers.

Other interests include modelling of social and biological processes, like the diffusion of language and peoples, the flow of traffic, and the spread of rumours or diseases. In such situations, the behaviour of individuals - a migrating person, a car driver, a rumour monger, or an infective - is highly variable. The mathematical modelling of this variability is done through stochastic models, which interstingly enough, are similar to models used to study fluctuations in soft materials. I plan to explore these connections to see if insights from one area can be used profitably in the other.