Gregory M. Grason Department of Physics and Astronomy Box 951547 475 Portola Plaza University of California Los Angeles, CA 90095-1547 Phone: +1.310.206.6977 Fax: +1.310.206.5668 E-mail: grason@physics.ucla.edu Office: 3-136, Knudsen Hall Ph. D. in Physics, University of Pennsylvania, 2005

I am currently a post-doc in the UCLA, Department of Physics and Astronomy, studying soft condensed matter and biophysics theory with Robijn Bruinsma. I have recently been studying how a freezing transition of mobile counterions in condensed assemblies of rod-like macromolecules (DNA, F-actin, microtubules, etc.) can be mapped onto the T=0, d=2+1 insulating-to-superconducting quantum phase transition of frustrated Josephson-junction arrays. This correspondence has important consequences for the precise nature of counterion ordering and for the macroscopic elastic properties of the bundle. (Slides from a recent presentation on this research are available here.) I am also interested in the self-assembly properties of complex, amphiphilic molecular systems. In particular, my research has focused on how such self-assembly can be cast in terms of frustration between purely geometric (model independent) quantities. Due to the abundance and adaptabilty of statistical theories describing polymeric molecules, block copolymer systems, in both the dilute and concentrated (or molten) limit, provide a model system for the development of robust and testible equlibrium, self-assembly predictions. (Slides from a recent talk on this work are available here.)