Haina Wang
Haina obtained her B.S. in chemistry and mathematics at National University of Singapore in 2018 and her PhD in theoretical chemistry at Princeton University in 2024. During her graduate studies, she worked in the group of Prof. Salvatore Torquato on extracting microscopic forces from the correlation functions of fluids and the inverse design of disordered hyperuniform systems, which are exotic states of matter that lie between typical liquids and crystals. Her experience with order metrics in chemical physics sparked her interest in disordered active systems in biology. As postdoc at Penn, she works with Profs. Andrea Liu and John Crocker on the "civil engineering" of living cells, i.e., modelling the actin cortex as a dynamic learning system. In her free time, Haina writes music reviews, plays the violin and attends Philadelphia Orchestra concerts.
Session
Elastic networks composed of Hookean springs serve as important models for the cytoskeleton, enzymes, and adaptive metamaterials. However, the elastic moduli of such networks are typically computed with finite difference methods, which yield inexact results that may introduce significant errors for mechanically sensitive materials. In ElasticityAD.jl, we have use Julia's automatic differentiation framework to enable calculations of exact stiffness tensor and elastic moduli.