Thomas Powers
Associate Professor of Engineering:
Engineering
Phone: +1 401 863 2868
Thomas_Powers@Brown.EDU
Professor Powers' research interests include molecular and cellular biomechanics, the physics of soft matter, and nonlinear dynamics.
Biography
Professor Powers received an S.B. in Physics and an S.B. in mathematics from the Massachusetts Insitute of Technology in 1989. In 1995, he received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania, with Prof. Phil Nelson serving as his advisor. After Penn, he held postdoctoral positions in the physics departments of Princeton University and the University of Arizona with Prof. Ray Goldstein. Then he was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University with Howard Stone in the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He joined the Division of Engineering of Brown University in 2000 as the first holder of the James R. Rice Term Chair in Solid Mechanics. He is currently an associate editor of Reviews of Modern Physics.
Interests
My particular current interests are locomotion at low Reynolds number and in complex fluids, and the mechanics of lipid bilayer membranes.
Awards
2001 T. Francis Ogilvie Young Investigator Lectureship, Ocean Engineering, MIT
CAREER Award, National Science Foundation, 2001--2006
James R. Rice Term Chair, 2000--2008
Affiliations
American Physical Society (Life Member)
Funded Research
Current funding
NSF (National Science Foundation) CBET grant 0854108: Collaborative Research: Fundamental principles of swimming in a viscoelastic medium (with K. Breuer at Brown University and A. Kudrolli at Clark University), $545,00; 9/1/09--8/31/12
Past funding
NSF (National Science Foundation) DMS grant 0615919: Mathematical models for swimming in a viscoelastic fluid, $314,104; 9/1/06--8/31/09
COBRE (Center of Biomedical Research Excellence) Pilot Grant: Role of fluid flow in nutrient transport in 3d chondrocyte culture (with V. Shenoy), $10,000; 12/1/08--7/31/09.
NSF (National Science Foundation) CTS NIRT 0404031: Theoretical nanomechanics: from cells to solids (with M. Geller, PI, University of Georgia; M. Blencowe, Dartmouth College; R. Phillips, Caltech)
$1,585,933; 7/01/04--6/30/09
NSF (National Science Foundation) CAREER grant CMS-0093658 Growth and form in biological systems: a micromechanical approach; $375,000; 6/01/01--5/31/06 (no cost extension to 5/31/07)
NSF (National Science Foundation) DMR-0320676, Acquisition of a Scanning Probe Microscope for Studies of
Biomolecules and Nanoscale Materials and Devices (with Jay X. Tang, PI; Gang
Xiao; James M. Valles; and Xinsheng Sean Ling); $133,000; 9/1/03--8/31/04.
Brown University Research Seed Funding Award, Seed Funds in the Area of Biomaterials (with C. Brian, PI; K. Breuer; D. Hoffmann-Kim; J. Morgan; and T. Palmore; $99,500; 1/1/03--12/31/03.
DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) Biomolecular Motors, Engineered bacterial transportation systems, with K.
Breuer, PI; H. Berg; G. Huber; and L. Turner; $1,679,005; 6/1/02--12/31/03.
Mechanics of self-assembled biological microstructures: membrane tethers, Brown Division of Engineering NSF Materials Research Engineering and Science Center (MRSEC) seed funding, $44,983; 2001--2003.
