Timothy James Atherton

Biography:
Timothy J. Atherton is Professor and Chair of the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Tufts University. Educated at the University of Exeter, he received his Ph.D. in Physics advised by Prof. J. R. Sambles FRS, with doctoral work on frustration phenomena in thin liquid crystal films. After postdoctoral appointments at the University of Exeter and Case Western Reserve University in Prof. C. Rosenblatt’s group he joined Tufts University in 2011. He has been recognized with the American Physical Society Five Sigma Physicist Award, the Cyril Hilsum Medal of the British Liquid Crystal Society, an NSF CAREER Award, a Research Corporation Cottrell Award, and the Out to Innovate Educator of the Year Award. His research focuses on theoretical and computational soft matter physics, with an emphasis on liquid crystals, geometry, shape optimization, jamming and packing on curved and deformable surfaces, and programmable shape change. 

The Atherton group is interested in how geometry, order, frustration, and defects organize soft materials, often in settings where shape and structure are strongly coupled. In one aspect of his work, he studies liquid crystals in confined, curved, and deformable geometries to understand how elasticity and boundary conditions guide emergent structures. He is also deeply interested in jamming, packing, and assembly on curved surfaces, where geometry provides routes to new material behavior. Finally, a major effort in his research group focuses on developing computational strategies for soft reconfigurable systems, including Morpho, a programmable environment for shape optimization and shapeshifting problems.

Title of the communication: 
To Splay or Not to Splay: Optimization-Based Finite Element Modeling of Ferronematic Liquid Crystals