Search 

I am interested in understanding the mechanical organization and functionality of the cell interface, as a way to create functional colloids whose interface is mechanically stable, self-healing, malleable and responsive to environmental factors. My recent research has been focused on creating composite lipogel interfaces that mimic the confinement of the cell membrane to the active gel- like cytoskeleton. The main tools used in my lab are optical microscopy for characterization, microfluidics for creating and testing the biomimetic systems, and mechanical and electric micromanipulation tools.

https://www.dur.ac.uk/physics/staff/profiles/?id=11834

My interests lie in the field of synthetic polymer chemistry and specifically the synthesis of polymers which are well controlled in terms of molecular weight, composition, functionality and chain architecture. We also collaborate extensively in studies which seek to understand the correlation between structure and properties. We exploit a variety of living/controlled polymerization mechanisms to achieve that aim but have particular interest in the use and development of living anionic polymerization.

We collaborate widely with industry and in terms of applications are currently focussed of rubber and elastomers

https://www.dur.ac.uk/chemistry/staff/profile/?id=188

Polymer surfaces, interfaces, blends, nanocomposites.  Surface modification, molecular migration and flow.  Ion and neutron scattering techniques, scanning probe microscopy.

Business development in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh

Flow of concentrated suspensions, shear thickening, granulation, dispersing powders in liquids, bacteria as colloids, dispersing bacteria in emulsions, motile bacteria in polymer solutions, imaging the flow of complex fluids, colloid-polymer mixtures, shelf life of colloidal gels

I'm an experimentalist who uses microscopy to study soft materials such as colloidal pastes and emulsions.

My experimental expertise is optical microscopy and confocal microscopy.  My lab group is good at image analysis:  if you can see it with your eye in the microscope image, we can probably get a computer to see it as well.  Furthermore, we can follow objects seen in movies over long periods of time.  For some of our studies of colloidal pastes, for example, we can follow the Brownian motion of several thousand micron-sized particles over several minutes or longer.

My scientific expertise is in "jammed" materials such as colloidal pastes, stiff foams, and high-droplet-content emulsions.  If you can make a pile of it on a table, I'm interested in studying it.  If you can change it so it flows, I'm curious about that too.  We love taking movies of stuff flowing under a microscope, and trying to relate microscopic behaviors to macroscopic properties.  Movies can be seen at my laboratory website:  http://www.physics.emory.edu/~weeks/lab/

I'm visiting Edinburgh for the summer, and have been collaborating with folks in Edinburgh for over a decade now (primarily Prof. Wilson Poon).

Energy Materials

Neutron Scattering

Biological and soft matter physics.

Action of antimicrobial and other peptides on floating lipid bilayer models for bacterial membranes.

Structure and dynamics of soft matter at interfaces studied using neutron scattering, reflectometry and spin echo techniques.

Emulsions and microfluidics.

Polymers and surfactants at interfaces.

Physics of Soft matter - colloids, polymers, bacteria, swimming microorganisms

Structure and dynamics

Microscopy imaging

Dynamic Light Scattering, X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy 

Dense colloidal suspensions, turbid samples, colloidal glasses, gels.

diffusion in complex fluid

mixture of swimming bacteria and colloids

Protein aggregation and self-assembly, proteins at interfaces, interfacial phenomena and stabilisation, biopharmaceutical formulation.

www.ph.ed.ac.uk/~cmacphee