People

Current team members:

• Pradeep Kumar Bal (“Mathematical and computational modeling of the active mechanics of multicellular systems: from cell-cell adhesion to epithelial reshaping”) will defend in September 2025 and is looking for a postdoc position.

• Pau Blanco (“Collective durolysis: a new mechanism for cancer invasion. A theoretical, computational and experimental study”). 

• Miquel Bosch, co-advised with Xavier Trepat (“Mechanics of epithelial sheets undergoing active bending”).  

• Eduard Jové (“Mathematical and computational modeling of homeostasis in the intestinal epithelium”). 

• Arash Imani, co-advised with Pablo Sáez (“Modeling of the interaction between biochemical and mechanical modules in the actomyosin cytoskeleton”). 

• Kimia Banihashem (“Reshaping of active and living surfaces”). 

Current collaborators:

• Xavier Trepat, IBEC, Barcelona

• Danijela Vignjevic, Institut Curie, Paris

• Antonio DeSimone, Sant'Anna, Pisa

• Antoine Khalil, Utrecht

• Pablo Sáez, UPC

PhD alumni:

• Nimesh Charare. Thesis title: “Mechanics of Epithelial tissue subjected to controlled pressure”, 2023. Co-advised with Xavier Trepat. Current position: Postdoc at Columbia University, USA. 

• Adam Ouzeri. Thesis title: “Theory and computation of multiscale epithelial mechanics: from active gels to vertex models”, 2023. Current position: Postdoc at Sorbonne Université, France.

• Jordi Font. Thesis title: “Mathematical and computational modeling of active cellular flows”, 2023. Current position: Postdoc at Zhejiang University, China.

• Waleed Mirza. Thesis title: “A theoretical and computational study of the active self-organization of nematic patterns in thin cytoskeletal layers and their effect on curvature”, 2023. Current position: Postdoc at EMBL-Barcelona.

• Caterina Tozzi. Thesis title: “A theoretical and computational study of the interaction between biomembranes and curved proteins”, 2021. Current position: Senior Data Scientist at AstraZeneca. Career prior to current position: Postdoc at Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology.

• Ernest Latorre. Thesis title: “Active superelasticity in three-dimensional epithelia of controlled shape”, 2021. Co-advised with Xavier Trepat. Current position: Assistant professor at Universitat de Lleida. Career prior to current position: founder of education company Principa.

• Dimitri Kaurin. Thesis title: "A theoretical and computational study of soft adhesion mediated by mobile binders", 2019. Currenr position: Senior Data Analyst, ING Belgium

• Alejandro Torres-Sánchez. Thesis title: “A Theoretical and Computational Study of the Mechanics of Biomembranes at Multiple Scales”, 2017. Current position: Group leader at EMBL-Barcelona. Career prior to current position: Postdoc at the Crick Institute (London), postdoc at IBEC (Barcelona).

• Bin Li. Thesis title: "The variational approach to brittle fracture in materials with anisotropic surface energy and in thin sheets", 2016. Current position: Associate Professor at Guangdong Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Career prior to current position: postdoc at Cornell and Université Pierre et Marie Curie.

• Christian Peco. Thesis title: "Approximation of phase-field models with meshfree methods: exploring biomembrane dynamics", 2015. Current position: associate professor at PennState University. Career prior to current position: postdoc at Duke.

• Kuan (Kevin) Zhang. Thesis title: "Engineering patterns of wrinkles and bubbles in supported graphene through modeling and simulation", 2015. Current position: Assistant Professor & Diagnostic Medical Physicist at University of Texas Southwestern. Career prior to current position: postdoc at Mayo Clinic and University of Minnesota. 

• Behrooz (Bruce) Hashemian. Thesis title: "Machine learning in multiscale modeling and simulation of molecular systems", 2015. Current position: AI in healthcare at NVIDIA, Boston. Career prior to current position: postdoc at MIT.

• Mohammad Rahimi. Thesis title: "Shape dynamics and lipid hydrodynamics of bilayer membranes: modeling, simulation and experiments", 2013. Current position: Principal Fluidics Engineer, 10x Genomics, California. Career prior to current position: postdoc at Princeton University.

• Daniel Millán. Thesis title: "Point-set Manifold Processing for Computational Mechanics: thin shells, reduced order modeling, cell motility and molecular conformations", 2012. Current position: Researcher at CONICET and professor at U. Cuyo, Argentina.

• Adrián Rosolen. Thesis title: "Developments in maximum entropy approximants and application to phase field models", 2011. Current position: Software engineer at ??. Career prior to current position: postdoc at MIT.

Postdoc Alumni:

• Nikhil Walani (PhD at University of Houston). Currently assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. 

• Giancarlo Cicconofri (PhD SISSA).

• Marco De Corato (Ph.D. at University of Naples "Federico secondo"). Currently Ramón y Cajal Fellow at the Universidad de Zaragoza.

• Guillermo Vilanova (PhD at U de la Coruña). Currently assistant professor at the U de Oviedo.

• Marco Pensalfini (PhD ETH Zurich). Currently lecturer at Queen Mary University.

• Morgan Chabanon (PhD École Centrale de Paris). Currently associate professoressor at University Paris-Saclay.

• Francesco Greco (PhD University of Calabria). Currently assistant professor at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya.

• Sohan Kale (PhD University of Illinois-Urbana Champain). Currently assistant professor at VirginiaTech.

• Juan M. Vanegas (PhD UC Davis). Currently associate professor at Oregon State University.

• Susanta Ghosh (PhD Indian Instute of Science). Currently, assistant professor at Michigan Tech.