Lab tour, with the voice of Paul Rudnicki.
Our motivation
We are an interdisciplinary group of physicists, engineers, chemists, and material scientists aiming to bridge the gap between molecules and macroscopic material performance. Fundamental to our work is the development of molecular scale understanding to the structure, morphology, and functionality of soft materials, with a focus on polymers. Molecular modeling and statistical mechanics are essential to our researches. The projects are inspired by experiments of colleagues and are driven by curiosity.
Our tools
We do both coarse-grained (LAMMPS) and atomistic (Gromacs) molecular dynamics simulations, and develop Monte Carlo code occasionally, in addition to analytical theories. Our favorite scripting language is Python and our prototyping language is Mathematica, both of them accessible to Stanford students. We write in TeX.
Interested in joining us?
We do not expect prior simulation and research experience from you. If you are dedicated, that can always be learned, and we are more than happy to help you develop the skills! Curiosity, however, is crucial. We hope you are curious enough to work hard and learn, and bold enough to explore the unknown. We delight ourselves in coding, math, science — figuring things out and having fun.
Our supporters
We are grateful to the supports from NSF, DOE, ACS PRF Fund, 3M Corporation, Hellman Foundation, Stanford BioX, Precourt Institute, and StorageX Initiative.
Recent updates
11/11: Jacob successfully defended thesis! Congratulations, Dr. Horne!
10/27: Srikant, Wes and Andrew's paper on the parameterization of conjugated polymers as ribbon-like chains is accepted by Macromolecules! Congratulations!
10/25: The group attended the Bay area soft matter symposium at Berkeley!
9/27: Our joint work on coherent field theory formulation of gelation, in collaboration with Daniel Vigil and Prof. Glenn Fredrickson from UCSB is published in Macromolecules!
9/2: Lab party waving bye to our friend and postdoc Kuan-Yu Lin, who will sooon start his own research lab. You are missed, Kuan-Yu!
8/28: Two undergraduate REU students Grason and Kian presented posters on the simulation and computational work they did on proteins and polyelectrolytes. Way to go!
8/21: Congratulations on Jacob's manuscript about finite-N correction to the electrostatic correlation free energy being accepted by Soft Matter!
6/9: Congratulations to Adi on winning the Chevron Fellowship in Energy 2025!
6/1: Congratulations on Jacob's manuscript about molecular-weight driven partitioning being accepted by Macromolecules!
…Contact
Jian Qin
443 Via Ortega
Stanford, CA 94305
jianq [at] stanford.edu