People
Principal Investigator
Rana Ashkar ashkar@vt.edu
(540) 231-5243
309 Robeson Hall
850 West Campus Drive,
Blacksburg, VA 24061
Graduate Students
Teshani Kumarage teshani92@vt.edu
Teshani is interested in Membrane Biophysics. She is studying collective dynamics in lipid membranes and the effect of molecular additives on the mechanical properties of model cell membranes.
Hadi Rahmaninejad hrahmani@vt.edu
Hadi is working on simulations of lipid bilayers and on theorertical modeling of scattering data from periodic nanostructures with applications in polymer technology and biophysics.
Undergraduate Students
Maria Ziu
Maria is an undergraduate student in Physics with an anticipated graduation date of 2025. Her studies in the lab focus on understanding molecular packing and adsorption kinetics in lipid monolayers.
Eleni Ziu
Eleni is an undergraduate student in Nanoscience with an anticipated graduation date of 2025. Her studies in the lab focus on understanding the effect of sterols and temperature on the molecular packing of lipid monolayers.
Alex Habibi
Alex is an undergraduate student in Biosystems Engineering with an anticipated graduation date of 2023. Her studies in the lab focus on understanding the effect of sterol modification on the energetics and packing motifs of different lipid membranes.
Nick Morris
Nick is an undergraduate student in Physics with an anticipated graduation date of 2023. His studies in the lab span a range of topics including bending energies of liposomal membranes and the design of an inert gas cabinet for Langmuir monolayer studies.
Former Group Members
Postdoctoral and Research Associates
Dr. Sudipta Gupta (research associate: Feb. 2021- Feb. 2022, now scientist at Eurofins)
Sudipta joined the lab after a postdoctoral experience at ORNL and Louisiana State University. His projects focused on the dynamic response of lipid membranes to molecular inclusions, drug molecules, and domain formation.
Dr. Saptarshi Chakraborty (postdoc: Jan. 2019- April 2020, now process development engineer at Wacker Chemical Corporation)
Saptarshi joined the lab after finishing a Ph.D. in Soft Matter at Clemson. His project focused on the effects of cholesterol on unsaturated lipid membranes and the dynamics of domain-forming lipid membranes.
Graduate Students
Chi Chen chi@vt.edu
Chi's project focused on understanding the topological and mechanical changes in structured hydrogel scaffolds for studies of lipid membrane curvature.
Undergraduate Students
Wally Borden
Wally graduate in 2022 with a B.S. in Physics. He is now a Physics graduate student at Syracuse University. During his stay in the lab, Wally worked on the analysis of X-ray scattering data on liposomal nanoparticles with sterol-modified lipids.
Julie Nguyen
Julie graduated in 2020 with a B.A. in Physics with a pre-med track . She is now a high school teacher in Northern Virginia. She plans to apply to medical school in the near future. During her stay in the lab, Julie helped set up the lab and perform Langmuir isotherms on lipid monolayers.
Other former members include:
Damien Ream (graduate student)
Andrew Johnson (undergraduate student)
Mayuk Sengupta (undergraduate student)
Alison Gaylord (undergraduate student)
Liam Weston (undergraduate student)
Vince Vasudevan (undergraduate student)
Michael Kane (undergraduate student)