Minibios

=Minibios of Participants= //Please place your sketch in alphabetical order by last name// toc

Dean, David
is Professor of Theoretical Physics at [|Universite Paul Sabatier] Toulouse. He works on stochastic processes, disordered systems and field theoretical approaches to soft condensed matter systems. In the field of fluctuation induced interactions he interested in their role in biological membranes, he also has a long standing interest in methods to compute the effective dielectric constants of composite materials. Some of my more recent papers relevant to this program (in their cond-mat form are below): [|Path integrals for stiff polymers applied to membrane physics] [|Fluctuation induced interactions between domains in membranes] [|Some observations on the renormalization of membrane rigidity by long-range interactions] [|The field theory of symmetrical layered electrolytic systems and the thermal Casimir effect] [|The thermal Casimir effect in lipid bilayer tubules] [|The two loop calculation of the disjoining pressure of a symmetric electrolyte soap film] [|Field theoretic calculation of the surface tension for a model electrolyte system] Computing effective dielectric constants is mathematically the same as computing effective diffusion constants, here is a review on the methods we have developed: [|Effective transport properties for diffusion in random media]

Diehl, Hans Werner
is [|professor] at the physics department of U. Duisburg-Essen (Germany). His background is in condensed matter theory / statistical field theory. He has worked on static and dynamic boundary critical phenomena, finite size effects, critical Casimir effects, multicritical phenomena, disordered systems, renormalization group theory, statistical physics of polymers, interfacial phenomena, and elementary excitations in disordered systems.

Dobson, John
is a professor in the School of Biomolecular and Physical Sciences and in the Nanoscale Science and Technology Centre at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. He is basically a condensed matter theoretical physicist with ongoing interests in time dependent and independent Density Functional Theory and in (usually electronic) response, correlation and dispersion/casimir interactions in nanosized systems. Recently he has noticed a systematic trend of highly "non-traditional" and slowly varying power laws for the dispersion interaction between anisotropic,metallic or near-metallic nanosystems such as graphene and nanotubes. He would like to explore the ramifications with both theorists and experimentalists.

Edery, Ariel
is associate professor of Physics at Bishop's University (Sherbrooke, Canada). His background is in gravitation and quantum field theory. His recent research interests include various aspects of the Casimir effect (e.g. piston geometry, compact dimensions, perfect magnetic conductor) and quantum fluctuation effects in a gravitational theory involving magnetic monopoles.

Emig, Thorsten
is permanent [|member of CNRS] at University Paris Sud and Heisenberg Fellow at Cologne University. His current main research interests are in various aspects of fluctuation forces, in particular geometry and shape dependence. He has also worked on disordered systems, magnetic frustration and granular media.

Graham, Noah
is an [|assistant professor and junior faculty fellow] at Middlebury College. His research interests include the use of scattering theory methods in calculations of quantum fluctuations, with applications to quantum solitons and the geometry and shape dependence of Casimir energies for compact objects. He has also worked to develop efficient numerical techniques to carry out these calculations.

Kardar, Mehran
is [|Professor] of Physics at MIT. My background is in Statistical Physics, and I have applied the methods and tools of this field to a variety of problems in soft matter and biological physics. In the context of this program, I am interested in the role of geometry and shape in fluctuation-induced interactions.

Klingmüller, Klaus
is a [|postdoc at RWTH Aachen University]. He is interested in the worldline (-numeric) approach to QFT which can be used, among other things, to study the Casimir effect and in particular its geometry and temperature dependence. More recently he also works on structure formation in cosmology.

Mueller, Martin Michael
is a [|Postdoc] at the Laboratoire de Physique Statistique of the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris. He is interested in geometry and its applications in nature.

**Parisen Toldin, Francesco**
is a Postdoc at the [|Max-Planck Institut für Metallforschung] in Stuttgart. He is currently working on the thermodynamic Casimir effect with numerical techniques. He has also worked on the critical behaviour of magnetic systems in the presence of quenched random disorder.

Peliti, Luca
is a [|professor] at the Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche, University Federico II in Napoli (Italy). His interests include the theory of fluctuations in small systems and the statistical mechanics approach to evolving populations.

Podgornik, Rudi
is a [|professor] at the Department of Physics, University of Ljubljana (Slovenia) and an adjunct scientist at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD. He is interested in the colloidal interactions between biological macromolecules. His specific interests include physics of DNA, polyelectrolytes, membranes and carbon nanotubes.

Rahi, Sahand Jamal
is a [|graduate student] at MIT.

Roberts, David C.
is a [|Feynman fellow] at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. His interests include the effect of quantum fluctuations on drag forces in superfluids.