You are here: Home › SEAS Directory › L. Mahadevan
Document Actions

L. Mahadevan

Faculty
  • Lola England de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics and Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
L. Mahadevan

Contact Information

Office: Pierce Hall 324
Email: lm [ AT ] seas [ DOT ] harvard [ DOT ] edu
Office Phone: (617) 496-9599
Office Fax: (617) 495-9837
Lab Name: The Applied Math Lab
Lab Room: 60 Oxford St. 328
Lab Phone: (617) 496-8892

Websites

Education

  1. Ph.D., 1995, Stanford University

Research Interests

    • Applied Mathematics & Computational Science
    • Control Theory and Stochastic Systems
    • Modeling Physical/Biological Phenonema and Systems
    • Electrical Engineering
    • Robotics and Control
    • Energy & Environmental Systems
    • Atmospheric and Climate Modeling
    • Oceans and Geophysics
    • Marriage of Biological & Artificial Systems
    • Biomechanics and Motor Control
    • Cell and Tissue Engineering and Biomaterials
    • Materials & Devices
    • Biophysics and Self-Assembly
    • Fluid Mechanics
    • Materials Science
    • Soft Condensed Matter
    • Solid Mechanics
    • Surface and Interface Science

Primary Teaching Area

Applied Mathematics

Secondary Teaching Area

Bioengineering

Profile

My work and that of my group centers around using mathematics to understand the organization of matter in space and time,  particularly at the scale observable by our unaided senses, and is thus closely tied in with experience and experiments. I prefer to be led by problems rather than being limited by tools.

In the past, I have worked on a range of problems at the intersection of mathematics and classical and statistical physics, subjects with enormous explanatory power and veins that run deep. While I maintain an interest in these subjects, more recently I have become fascinated by the possibility, remote as it still is, that it is possible to use quantitative approaches in biology, medicine and beyond. 

Members of my group come with a range of backgrounds in science and engineering and have gone on to industrial and academic positions in a range of disciplines, and include faculty in biology, chemistry, mathematics, physics, as well as in engineering and medical schools. 

Awards and named lectures include the Chaire Condorcet at the Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris (2001), the G I Taylor Lectureship of the Cambridge Philosophical Society (2001), the Alan Tayler Lectureship at Oxford University (2003), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2006), and a MacArthur Fellowship (2009).

Positions & Employment

Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

  • Lola England de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics
Harvard Department of Physics
  • Professor of Physics
Harvard Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
  • Professor
Harvard Medical School
  • Affiliate Professor, Department of Systems Biology
University of Oxford
  • Schlumberger Visiting Professor, Mathematical Institute
National Center for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, India
  • Distinguished Visiting Professor

Honors

(Selected)

  • MacArthur Fellowship, 2009
  • John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, 2006
  • George Ledlie Prize, Harvard University, 2006
  • Alan Tayler Lecturer, Smith Institute and Oxford University, UK, 2003
  • G.I. Taylor Lecturer, Cambridge Philosophical Society, Cambridge, UK, 2001
  • Chaire Condorcet, Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, 2001
  • Edgerton Award, MIT, 2000

Selected Publications

  1. Elastohydrodynamics of wet bristles, carpets and brushes. A. Gopinath and L. Mahadevan, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London (A).
  2. Structural dynamics of an actin spring. L. Mahadevan, C. Riera and J. Shin Biophysical Journal, 100, 839-44, 2011.
  3. Growth, geometry and mechanics of the blooming lily. H-Y Liang and L. Mahadevan, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108, 5516-21, 2011.
  4. Asymmetric network connectivity using weighted harmonic averages. G. Morrison and L. Mahadevan, Europhysics Letters, 93, 40002, 2011.
  5. How wet paper curls. E. Reyssat and L. Mahadevan, Europhysics Letters, 93, 54001, 2011.
  6. Unfolding the sulcus. E. Hohlfeld and L. Mahadevan, Physical Review Letters, 106, 105702, 2011.
  7. The shallow turn of a worm. D. Kim, S. Park, L. Mahadevan and J. Shin, Journal of Experimental Biology, 214, 1554-1559, 2011.
  8. Influence of feedback on the stochastic evolution of simple climate systems. L. Mahadevan and J. Deutch, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London (A), 466, 993, 2010.
  9. Statistical mechanics of developable ribbons. L. Giomi and L. Mahadevan, Physical Review Letters, 104, 238104, 2010.
  10. Nanopottery: coiling of electrospun polymer nanofibers. H-Y Kim, M Lee, K-J Park, S Kim and L. Mahadevan, Nanoletters, 10, 2138, 2010.

Faculty CV

CV-current.pdf — PDF document, 215 kB (221087 bytes)