My main interests are understanding the structure of fragile glass formers, the nature of homogeneous and heterogeneous nucleation, and the dynamics of earthquakes. To this end we are studying mean-field models and Lennard-Jones type systems both theoretically and by computer simulations. Our present understanding is that the observed glass transition is a manifestation of an underlying thermodynamic instability associated with a spinodal. The latter exists only in the mean-field limit, but has observable consequences in dense systems or in systems with large molecules.

Postdoctoral research fellow

• Jan Fiala

Graduate students

• Ranjit Chacko
• Junchao Xia
• Hui Wang

Former students and post-docs

• Fereydoon Family, Emory University
• Carmen Gagne, Lockheed.
• Natali Gulbahce, post-doc at LANL.
• Greg Johnson, Los Alamos National Laboratory, technical staff.
• Andrew Melcuk, University of Massachusetts Polymer Center.
• Rongfeng Sun (undergraduate).
• Jim Yang, Cisco Systems.

Recent colloborators:

• Frank Alexander, Los Alamos National Laboratory.
• Bulbul Chakraborty, Brandeis University.
• Bill Klein, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Boston University.
• Jon Machta, UMass, Amherst.
• Ray Mountain, NIST.
• Jan Tobochnik, Kalamazoo College.

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