THEOCHEMLAB.ASU.EDU - Key Persons
Adam was born in Iran. He finished his undergraduate study in Cellular and Molecular Biology at Azad University of Central Tehran Branch. He and his wife met each other there and researched some potentially probiotic strains. Then, he started his Masters in Biophysics at the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics research (IBB), University of Tehran. Since the start of his MSc, he has tilted his path towards more computational physical biology. His thesis was a simulation of direct effects of proton irradiation on DNA using Geant4, a Monte Carlo simulation toolkit developed by CERN. Afterward, he chose to remain in the academic environment, thus, he tried hard and persuaded the IBB dean so he could serve his military service at that department as the central lab technician for two years. Meanwhile, he collaborated with one of the faculty members of the IBB as both TA, and researcher, working on a new approach towards cancer treatment using a recently discovered mechanism called Radical Pair Mechanism. He was admitted to the ASU in Spring 2022 and joined Matyushov's lab. Adam is quite enthusiastic about many things, most of all, theoretical science. He also loves watching science fiction movies, hiking and biking, and socializing with people.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Physics and Chemistry at Arizona State University
Dmitry Matyushov is a Professor of Physics and Chemistry at Arizona State University. His research interests are in theoretical and computational condensed matter physics, physical chemistry, and biophysics. After receiving his undergraduate degree in 1986 from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (Phystech), he studied at Kiev State University (Ukraine) and the Ukrainian Academy of Science, receiving his Ph.D. in theoretical physics in 1989 with the thesis on path integrals for stochastic processes. He worked as a staff scientist in the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and in 1993 was awarded a postdoctoral (Lise Meitner) fellowship from the Austrian Science Foundation. After spending 3 years in Vienna, also in the position of an invited professor, he moved to Fort Collins (CO) to join the group of Prof Branka Ladanyi as a postdoctoral fellow. After another postdoc with Prof Greg Voth at the University of Utah, he joined the faculty of Arizona State University in 2000. His research in Arizona focused on spectroscopy, solvation, phase and glass transitions, complex fluids, electron transfer, dielectric spectroscopy, and bioenergetics (mechanisms of photosynthesis and respiration). Current interests include protein dynamics, electrostatics of the protein-water interface, and problems related to ergodicity breaking and nonequilibrium ensembles in biology and enzyme catalysis.
Dr. Allan Friesen graduated in 2012 and is now on staff as a chemistry and physics teacher at ARETE Preparatory Academy (APA), Gilbert AZ
Dr. Daniel Martin graduated in 2008 with MS in Chemistry (PhD in Physics, 2005). He is currently an Assistant Research Scientist at the Physics department at ASU
Dr. David LeBard, graduated in 2008, accepted a faculty position at Yeshiva University, currently is a Senior Scientist at Schrödinger
Shikha Gupta, graduated with MS in 2004, currently is an Environmental Operations Program Manager (Maricopa County)
Taylor Colburn graduated from ASU with a Biophysics undergraduate degree in 2018, joining the physics PhD program in the fall of 2021. He has a particular interest in applying non-equilibrium statistical physics to complex biological systems. He started in science as a volunteer researcher with the Translational Neurotrauma Research Program, a joint venture through Barrow Neurological Institute at Phoenix Children's Hospital, Department of Child Health at the University of Arizona, College of Medicine - Phoenix, and Phoenix Veterans Administration Healthcare System. There, he worked with a microelectrode electrochemistry model to gain insight into glutamate kinetics in the brains of anesthetized rodents. He went on to join the Beckstein Lab at ASU in the fall of 2015, using an enhanced sampling methodology to explore the ensemble of transitions between conformations of the membrane transporter MHP1. Taylor's current work in the Matyushov lab involves fundamentals of transport coefficients and nonequilibrium fluctuations in biomolocules. In addition to having a fondness for condensed matter and biophysics, Taylor enjoys reading fiction, playing music, and bouldering.
Tuhin Samanta is a postdoctoral scholar at Arizona State University since 2019. Tuhin was born and brought up in India. He did his Ph.D. in Chemical Physics in the Solid State and Structural Chemistry Unit at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India under the guidance of Prof. Biman Bagchi. Currently, he is a postdoctoral research scholar in Prof. Matyushov's group at Arizona State University.
His research interests primarily lie in the area of chemical dynamics of different complex systems. He has a strong background in computer simulations of theoretical infrared spectroscopy, (i.e. 1D and 2D infrared spectroscopy) computational studies of hydrophobicity i.e. especially the confinement properties, glass transition, electron transfer, and dielectric relaxation of polar and non-polar liquids etc.