L. Mahadevan
Applied Mathematics

Our work centers around using mathematics to understand the mechanical behavior of living and nonliving matter, particularly at the scale of the everyday world, in close linkage with experience and experiments. We wish to uncover explanations for robust everyday phenomena that are easy to observe, often not so well understood, and are of relevance far beyond what might be first envisaged. Current research interests include: mathematical description of linear and nonequilibrium processes in soft condensed matter systems such as gels, polymers and fluids; mathematical models for cellular and developmental physiology, particularly in the context of motility; and biological mechanics and physics in the context of animal and plant design and evolution

Publications:
Forterre, Y., Skotheim, J.M., Dumais, J., and Mahadevan, L. 2005. How the Venus flytrap snaps. Nature 433: 421-425.

Charras, G.T., Yarrow, J.C., Horton, M.A., Mahadevan, L. and Mitchison, T.J. 2005. Non-equilibration of hydrostatic pressure in blebbing cells. Nature 435: 365-369.

Mahadevan, L. and Rica, S. 2005. Self-organized origami. Science 307: 1740.

Effimenko, K., Rackaitis, M., Manias, E., Vaziria, A., Mahadevan, L. and Genzer, J. 2005. Nested self-similar wrinkling patterns in skins. Nat. Mater. 4: 293-297.

Mahadaven, L., Daniel, S. and Chaudhury, M.K. 2004. Biomimetic ratcheting motion of a soft, slender, sessile gel. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 101: 23-26.

Cohen, A. and Mahadevan, L. 2003. Rings, rachets and kinks in filamentous assemblies. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 100: 12141-12146.

Shin, J.L., Mahadevan, L., Langsmo, K. and Matsudaira, P. 2003. Stored elastic energy powers the 60-micron extension of the L. polyphemus sperm actin bundle. J. Cell Biol. 162: 11883-1188.