James Cass
I'm a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Exeter interested in dynamical models with biological applications. I use analytical and numerical techniques applied to systems away from equilbrium, and am interested in methods to fit experimental data to nonlinear differential equation models.
For my PhD I studied the internal nonlinear mechanics of eukaryotic cilia and flagella. The big open question is how individual molecular motor proteins act collectively to generate propagating waves that enable microorganisms to swim or pump fluid. Now I am interested in how seemingly 'intelligent' behaviour of single-celled organisms can be controlled through e.g. bioelectricity or genetic networks and how to model such situations mathematically and computationally.
Session
MicroSwimmers.jl is a package for simulating the dynamics of flagellated microswimmers in low-Reynolds-number fluid environments where geometry and actuation determine global behaviour. Built on the boundary-element regularised Stokeslet method, it provides a composable framework for constructing time-dependent swimmer morphologies and exploring parameter-driven transitions in trajectories and flow fields, integrated with the Julia scientific computing ecosystem.