Liu to Give Phi Beta Kappa Lecture
April 7, 2005
LEWISBURG, Pa. — Andrea Liu, professor of physics at the University of Pennsylvania, will give the lecture, "The Physics of How Cells Crawl and Listeria Spreads," Thursday, April 14, at 7:30 p.m. in Olin Science Auditorium (Room 268) at Bucknell University.
The talk, which is free to the public, is part of the ongoing Phi Beta Kappa lecture series, co-sponsored by the Bucknell physics department.
"In her talk, Liu will discuss some unusual physics at work in making cells mobile, so it will be a mix of physics and biology," said Ben Vollmayr-Lee, associate professor of physics at Bucknell.
"She is a highly regarded researcher who gives fantastic presentations. We are honored to have her visit the university."
A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, Liu holds a doctorate from Cornell University. She served as a postdoctoral fellow with Exxon Research and Engineering Company and as a postdoctoral research associate at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She taught at UCLA before joining the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania in 2004.
A theorist who studies charged polymers, electrostatics, and the mechanics of "jamming," a term she coined to describe the breakdown of flow in sand, glasses, and foams, she is the co-editor of Jamming and Rheology and has served on the editorial boards of Journal of Statistical Physics, Physical Review E, and Soft Materials.
She is a member of the executive committee of the division of condensed matter physics of the American Physical Society and of the advisory board of the Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics.
