Soft Materials Modelling

Professor:

Maria Sammalkorpi, D.Sc. (Tech.)

Maria claims to be nice, and occasionally is. She used to be quite shy about her geeky books and computers. Then, she went to get a degree in physics and grew up a little. The amount she grew is rather disputable as she still measures only 153cm (~5ft). Sometime later she acknowledged also chemistry, got a doctoral degree, and fell in love, definitely not in that order.

Research Fellow:

Dmitry Tolmachev, Ph.D.

Dmitry models biosynthetic protein materials, but is also involved with the cellulose modelling directions of the group. Dmitry has a broad molecular modelling background of chemically specific molecular systems.

Post-docs:

Max Philipp Holl, Ph.D.

Max focuses in the group on theory and modelling approaches to magnetic field driven pattern formation in systems with diffuse interfaces. His methodological expertise is in field-theoretic models and statistical mechanics, and he comes to the group with soft matter physics background.

Tuuva Kastinen, Ph.D.

Tuuva works on polypeptide and other polyelectrolyte interactions in aqueous solutions. She uses atomistic detail molecular dynamics (MD) and ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) approaches in her work. Tuuva's background is in chemistry and she has a quantum chemistry modelling background.

Gabriel Debais, Ph.D.

Gabriel is very familiar with mean field and statistical mechanics approaches to soft matter systems. His main work in the group is polyelectrolyte assemblies but he also studies assembly transitions in colloidal matter.

Fabio Priante, D.Sc (Tech.)

Fabio comes to the group with computational physics background, with expertise in molecular level simulations, machine learning, and modelling of chemically specific molecular systems. His main work in the group focuses on emulsion and reverse micellar systems, as well as controlling their dynamics.

Graduate students:

Zhennan Kou, M.Sc.

Zhennan models the interactions of cellulose crystals in water solutions focusing especially on the effects of cosolutes. Before joining the group, Zhennan did his M.Sc. thesis in the Applied Physics Department of Aalto University focusing on modelling phonons in MoS2 lattices.

Kourosh Hasheminejad, M.Sc.

Kourosh works on modelling polymer film coatings on biobased substrates. He uses mesoscale dissipative particle dynamics and atomistic detail molecular dynamics methodology to examine block-copolymer assembly in bulk and the film formation and structure at the substrate. Kourosh' comes to the group with a materials science background.

Hossein Vahid Dastjerdi, M. Sc.

Hossein works on interactions of charged polymers and salt ions. He uses atomistic, coarse-grained and mean field theory based approaches to examine interactions rising in polyelectrolyte systems in the presence of excess salt. Hossein's background is physics.

Adam Harmat, M. Sc.

Adam works on multiscale modelling of biomolecular condensates, especially the effect of external fields on liquid-liquid phase separation in protein systems. Adam comes to the group with chemical engineering and physical chemistry study background.

Efstathia Mantzari, M.Ph.

Efstathia's doctoral research is on biomolecular interactions with lignocellulose substrates. She has biosciences background.

Master's thesis students:

Emil Stråka

Emil's research in the group focuses on instabilities in ferrofluid systems and the interfacial responses of phase separating fluids. He likes analytical approaches, uses also numerical methods, and sometimes resorts to particle-based simulations. Previously, he has worked in the group on magnetically controlled assembly of nanoparticles via Brownian and Langevin dynamics simulations approaches. Emil is a physics student but he also has some background in chemistry.

Linnéa Hammarberg

Linnéa comes to the group with a background that combines studies in pharmaceutics and life science technologies. Her M.Sc. thesis work focuses on the use of AI techniques in biomolecules and their assembly.

Can Yücel

Can's background is in fiber and polymer technology and his M.Sc. thesis is about azobenzene based polymeric sensor materials.

Undergraduate students (research assistants):

Iida-Liisa Kuokka

Iida-Liisa's research is on surfactant assemblies in apolar solvents. She uses molecular modelling approaches to study the assembly response in bulk and at interfaces. She comes to the group with chemical sciences and environmental sciences study background.

Yan Zheng

Yan is a chemistry M.Sc. degree program student who works in the group on complex phase separation responses in colloidal mixtures. She uses mesoscale particle-based simulations approaches in her work.

Emma Rantala

Emma examines self-assembling monolayers and their effect on surface wetting. Her main methodological tools are atomistic detail molecular dynamics simulations.

Group alumni:

Dr. Alberto Scacchi, Dr. Ygor Morais Jaques, Dr. Maisa Vuorte, Dr. Mohammad Khavani Sariani, Dr. Sousa Javan Nikkhah, Dr. Sathish Kumar Mudedla, Dr. Piotr Batys, Dr. Ran Zhang, Dr. Erol Yildirm, Dr. Hanne Antila, L.Sc. Dipti Potdar, M.Sc. Zahra Mohammadyarloo, M.Sc. Jukka Määttä, M.Sc. Miko Niemistö, M.Sc. Samu Kivistö, M.Sc. Anna Leino, M.Sc. Dominik Wowczyk, Aapo Lokka, Markus Kyllönen, Rosa Penttinen,Juliaana Juurakko, Iina Kivimäki, Laura Tiittanen, Marc Härkönen, Sami Kulju, Sohvi Luukkonen