#  Current Members 

 



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##  'That' Guy 

 



  [### Michael P. Brenner

 ](/people/michael-p-brenner) <brenner@seas.harvard.edu>Michael F. Cronin Professor of Applied Mathematics and Applied Physics and Professor of Physics

 

 

 Michael is a faculty member in SEAS and Physics at Harvard University. He has a PhD in Physics from the University of Chicago, where he worked with Professor Leo Kadanoff. His first faculty position was at MIT in the Mathematics Department before joining... 

 

 

      ![Michael Being an Experimentalist](/sites/g/files/omnuum6161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/brennergroup/files/Michael_Experimentalist.jpg?itok=VkX0PnX1) 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

##  Postdoctoral Fellows 

 



  [### Erin Crawley

 ](/people/erin-crawley)

 I work on problems in soft matter and molecular self-assembly, combining analytical methods with molecular simulations. I develop design principles for self-assembling systems in biology and nanotechnology and methods to understand how molecular systems... 

 

 

      ![erin](/sites/g/files/omnuum6161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/2026-01/prof%20%282%29.jpg?itok=tNOINd1j) 

 

 

 

   [### Francesco Mottes

 ](/people/francesco-mottes)

 Applied Math 

 

 

      ![francesco.jpg](/sites/g/files/omnuum6161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/brennergroup/files/francesco.jpg?itok=C5X7zt9B) 

 

 

 

   [### James Roggeveen

 ](/people/james-roggeveen)

 I am interested in applying machine-learning tools in combination with physics to solve optimization and inverse design problems in fluid mechanics. My background in applied mathematics and mechanical engineering drives my twin purposes of understanding... 

 

 

      ![james](/sites/g/files/omnuum6161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/2025-03/IMG_3094.png?itok=yzW-723N) 

 

 

 

   [### Alp Sunol

 ](/people/alp-sunol)

 My research interests lie in modeling living and non-living soft matter and complex fluids, spanning topics from colloidal hydrodynamics and viscoelastic flows to active matter and intracellular transport. I am currently developing computational methods... 

 

 

      ![alp.png](/sites/g/files/omnuum6161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/brennergroup/files/alp.png?itok=0KqztamP) 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

##  Graduate Students 

 



  [### Ramya Deshpande

 ](/people/rayma-deshpande)5th Year in Harvard Bioengineering

 

 

 Differentiable physics models to learn collective behaviors of cells in developmental &amp; synthetic biology 

 

 

      ![ramya.jpeg](/sites/g/files/omnuum6161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/brennergroup/files/ramya.jpeg?itok=esHC49pi) 

 

 

 

   [### Livia Guttieres

 ](/people/livia-guttieres)3rd Year in Harvard Applied Physics

 

 

 Livia is a 3rd year PhD student working on self-assembly optimization and inverse design. 

 

 

      ![livia](/sites/g/files/omnuum6161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/2025-02/PHOTO-2025-02-13-16-46-39.jpg?itok=f1UyWTHK) 

 

 

 

   [### Aidan Zentner

 ](/people/aidan-zentner)3rd Year in Harvard Applied Physics

 

 

 I am interested in the extent to which molecular systems can be engineered to perform complex computations. 

 

 

      ![aidan](/sites/g/files/omnuum6161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/2026-01/aidan-pic.jpg?itok=XuZ4GDS1) 

 

 

 

   [### Qian-Ze Zhu

 ](/people/qian-ze-zhu) <qianzezhu@g.harvard.edu>5th Year in Harvard Applied Physics

 

 

 My research combines statistical physics, differentiable simulation and machine learning to uncover fundamental limits and design principles governing self-assembly, information flow, and molecular computation. 

 

 

      ![qian-ze](/sites/g/files/omnuum6161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/2025-01/IMG_7609_cropped.jpg?itok=dhqfgyXw)