Moumita (Mo) Das
@physbee.bsky.social
Theoretical Biological and Soft Matter Physicist. Interested in all things networks-related in biological physics and physical biology. My views here are my own.
Pinned
Dear biophysics friends — the APS DBIO elections are now open! If you are a member, check for an email from directvote.net with the ballot. Please take a moment to vote — our community thrives when we show up. Candidate statements and bios are on the ballot (and I’m on it for Vice Chair).
Dear colleagues, if you are at the Cell Bio 2025, come check out posters by Sam Silliman (board B347) and Ulises Diaz (board B359)-- presenting work with @wallaceucsf.bsky.social and me -- in the Physical Properties of the Cytoplasm session in Exhibit Hall DE today from 2-3.45 pm.
December 7, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Dear colleagues, if you are at the Cell Bio 2025, come check out posters by Sam Silliman (board B347) and Ulises Diaz (board B359)-- presenting work with @wallaceucsf.bsky.social and me -- in the Physical Properties of the Cytoplasm session in Exhibit Hall DE today from 2-3.45 pm.
Our manuscript on Dps:DNA condensates is now live on bioRxiv! With @abbondanzieri.bsky.social @meyerroc.bsky.social
Check it out at: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Check it out at: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Emergent Morphologies, Slow Dynamics, and Phase Behavior in Dps:DNA assemblies
The DNA-binding protein from starved cells (Dps) compacts bacterial DNA into stress-protective condensates, yet the physical mechanisms underlying this process and the material properties of the resul...
www.biorxiv.org
December 3, 2025 at 12:30 PM
Our manuscript on Dps:DNA condensates is now live on bioRxiv! With @abbondanzieri.bsky.social @meyerroc.bsky.social
Check it out at: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Check it out at: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Super excited for today's BPPB seminar... happening now!
I am honored and excited to present our recent work on mixed AND asymmetric membranes at @bppbseminar.bsky.social! 🧪
My online talk will be this Friday, 11/21/25, 11am US Eastern time.
Many thanks to the organizers for putting this together! More details here: sites.google.com/view/bppb-se...
My online talk will be this Friday, 11/21/25, 11am US Eastern time.
Many thanks to the organizers for putting this together! More details here: sites.google.com/view/bppb-se...
November 21, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Super excited for today's BPPB seminar... happening now!
It was such a pleasure hosting Anne Meyer from UR for today’s Physics Colloquium. Her talk was fantastic, and I learned so much. The Q&A that followed—including the many thoughtful questions from students —was great too. Anne and me chatting over ginger tea afterwards + the talk announcement
November 13, 2025 at 12:10 AM
It was such a pleasure hosting Anne Meyer from UR for today’s Physics Colloquium. Her talk was fantastic, and I learned so much. The Q&A that followed—including the many thoughtful questions from students —was great too. Anne and me chatting over ginger tea afterwards + the talk announcement
Dear biophysics friends — the APS DBIO elections are now open! If you are a member, check for an email from directvote.net with the ballot. Please take a moment to vote — our community thrives when we show up. Candidate statements and bios are on the ballot (and I’m on it for Vice Chair).
November 10, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Dear biophysics friends — the APS DBIO elections are now open! If you are a member, check for an email from directvote.net with the ballot. Please take a moment to vote — our community thrives when we show up. Candidate statements and bios are on the ballot (and I’m on it for Vice Chair).
This weekend was peak fall at Letchworth State Park, and the weather couldn’t have been better on Sunday — perfect for our annual Lab (+ friends) hike.
October 20, 2025 at 9:23 PM
This weekend was peak fall at Letchworth State Park, and the weather couldn’t have been better on Sunday — perfect for our annual Lab (+ friends) hike.
Excited to be hosting the BPPB seminar tomorrow after a while (last semester I was teaching during seminar hour).
Looking forward to a stimulating talk by Gautam Reddy (Princeton University) on the physics of learning.
Hope to see some of you there
Looking forward to a stimulating talk by Gautam Reddy (Princeton University) on the physics of learning.
Hope to see some of you there
Please join BPPB Seminars on Friday October 10 at 11 US Eastern time for an exciting talk by Gautam Reddy @gautamreddy.bsky.social
on "Mechanisms for learning to learn in small transformer models". For more details, please visit sites.google.com/view/bppb-se...
October 9, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Excited to be hosting the BPPB seminar tomorrow after a while (last semester I was teaching during seminar hour).
Looking forward to a stimulating talk by Gautam Reddy (Princeton University) on the physics of learning.
Hope to see some of you there
Looking forward to a stimulating talk by Gautam Reddy (Princeton University) on the physics of learning.
Hope to see some of you there
Reposted by Moumita (Mo) Das
Are you a mathematician or biologist interested in exploring the potential of mathematical biology?
Join us for our upcoming workshop, Expanding the Palette of Mathematics in Biology!
Application 🔗 in reply ⬇️
Join us for our upcoming workshop, Expanding the Palette of Mathematics in Biology!
Application 🔗 in reply ⬇️
September 4, 2025 at 6:39 PM
Are you a mathematician or biologist interested in exploring the potential of mathematical biology?
Join us for our upcoming workshop, Expanding the Palette of Mathematics in Biology!
Application 🔗 in reply ⬇️
Join us for our upcoming workshop, Expanding the Palette of Mathematics in Biology!
Application 🔗 in reply ⬇️
Last night we celebrated my postdoc mentee Jonathan’s send-off! 🎉 An amazing colleague and friend to our lab, his research in the Lab spanned cartilage mechanics, cytoskeletal composites & rigidity transitions, with papers in Science Advances, PNAS Nexus, Soft Matter, Phys Rev Res. We will miss him!
August 31, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Last night we celebrated my postdoc mentee Jonathan’s send-off! 🎉 An amazing colleague and friend to our lab, his research in the Lab spanned cartilage mechanics, cytoskeletal composites & rigidity transitions, with papers in Science Advances, PNAS Nexus, Soft Matter, Phys Rev Res. We will miss him!
Just back from the 2025 Soft Matter GRC = soft matter summer camp. Talks, discussions & power hour were 🔥! Huge congrats and thanks to Jenny Ross & Meredith Betterton for co-chairing and making it a big success. In 2 yrs I’ll co-chair w/ Eric Dufresne — can't wait!
Photo: with GRC and GRS chairs
Photo: with GRC and GRS chairs
August 17, 2025 at 2:04 PM
Just back from the 2025 Soft Matter GRC = soft matter summer camp. Talks, discussions & power hour were 🔥! Huge congrats and thanks to Jenny Ross & Meredith Betterton for co-chairing and making it a big success. In 2 yrs I’ll co-chair w/ Eric Dufresne — can't wait!
Photo: with GRC and GRS chairs
Photo: with GRC and GRS chairs
Super excited about this new grant from the NSF–Simons NITMB with Wallace Marshall (UCSF)! Our project will use tools from abstract algebra and graph theory to model how mitochondrial networks form, reorganize, and function.
#MathBio #Mitochondria #AbstractAlgebra #NITMB #InterdisciplinaryResearch
#MathBio #Mitochondria #AbstractAlgebra #NITMB #InterdisciplinaryResearch
Representing mitochondrial dynamics with abstract algebra
Explore new NITMB-Supported Research from Wallace Marshall (Professor, University of California, San Francisco) and Moumita Das (Professor, Rochester Institute of Technology)!
Learn more at www.nitmb.org/supported-re...
Explore new NITMB-Supported Research from Wallace Marshall (Professor, University of California, San Francisco) and Moumita Das (Professor, Rochester Institute of Technology)!
Learn more at www.nitmb.org/supported-re...
August 6, 2025 at 12:12 AM
Super excited about this new grant from the NSF–Simons NITMB with Wallace Marshall (UCSF)! Our project will use tools from abstract algebra and graph theory to model how mitochondrial networks form, reorganize, and function.
#MathBio #Mitochondria #AbstractAlgebra #NITMB #InterdisciplinaryResearch
#MathBio #Mitochondria #AbstractAlgebra #NITMB #InterdisciplinaryResearch
Low key lab dinner last night to celebrate Keegan’s successful MS thesis defense and Youssof’s successuful PhD 2nd year presentation. Action shots from Youssof’s talk earlier in the day.
July 26, 2025 at 3:44 PM
Low key lab dinner last night to celebrate Keegan’s successful MS thesis defense and Youssof’s successuful PhD 2nd year presentation. Action shots from Youssof’s talk earlier in the day.
My Physics MS mentee Keegan Tonry defended their thesis today with a clear, thorough talk on spatiotemporal restructuring in active cytoskeletal composites. It’s been great to see them grow and thrive as a researcher and bring this work to fruition. Congrats, Keegan!
July 24, 2025 at 11:58 PM
My Physics MS mentee Keegan Tonry defended their thesis today with a clear, thorough talk on spatiotemporal restructuring in active cytoskeletal composites. It’s been great to see them grow and thrive as a researcher and bring this work to fruition. Congrats, Keegan!
At the Hactive Matter 2025 Workshop (Hackathon) at UCSB, with my collaborators Rae Robertson-Anderson, Megan Valentine, Ryan McGorty and student/postdoc participants
July 22, 2025 at 9:23 PM
At the Hactive Matter 2025 Workshop (Hackathon) at UCSB, with my collaborators Rae Robertson-Anderson, Megan Valentine, Ryan McGorty and student/postdoc participants
Reposted by Moumita (Mo) Das
Please join BPPB on Friday July 18 at 11 US Eastern time for talks by Lailai Zhu (Endowing Intelligence in Bionic Active Particles) and Sohan Kale (Mapping Cellular Tractions on Nanonets). For more information and to join our email list, please visit sites.google.com/view/bppb-se....
July 16, 2025 at 9:47 PM
Please join BPPB on Friday July 18 at 11 US Eastern time for talks by Lailai Zhu (Endowing Intelligence in Bionic Active Particles) and Sohan Kale (Mapping Cellular Tractions on Nanonets). For more information and to join our email list, please visit sites.google.com/view/bppb-se....
Just wrapped up 5 intense days at an NIH Innovation Lab on synthetic biology + cancer initiation. Hadn’t been in one in 4 years, forgot how stimulating they can be. Nothing like the thrill of bold, cross-disciplinary ideas with scientists you’ve just met—who may well become your new collaborators
July 11, 2025 at 11:32 PM
Just wrapped up 5 intense days at an NIH Innovation Lab on synthetic biology + cancer initiation. Hadn’t been in one in 4 years, forgot how stimulating they can be. Nothing like the thrill of bold, cross-disciplinary ideas with scientists you’ve just met—who may well become your new collaborators
I’ve recently stepped into the role of Director of our Physics PhD program. Colleagues who’ve served as PhD Program Directors or DGS — I’d love your thoughts on what worked, what didn’t, and what you wish you’d known starting out. Comment, email, or tell me next time we talk (in person or on Zoom).
July 4, 2025 at 2:28 AM
I’ve recently stepped into the role of Director of our Physics PhD program. Colleagues who’ve served as PhD Program Directors or DGS — I’d love your thoughts on what worked, what didn’t, and what you wish you’d known starting out. Comment, email, or tell me next time we talk (in person or on Zoom).
Reposted by Moumita (Mo) Das
I put together a rough presentation on how US science funding works, for my & neighboring research groups, mainly aimed at grad students. Lots of neat graphs! (Each could be a story of its own...) Quiz questions! I pasted it into a blog post: eighteenthelephant.com/2025/06/11/a...
An Informal Overview of US Science Funding
How does public funding for science work in the United States? How much money is there? Who gets it, and how? How much does a graduate student cost? Even normally, science funding is a rich topic w…
eighteenthelephant.com
June 11, 2025 at 2:20 PM
I put together a rough presentation on how US science funding works, for my & neighboring research groups, mainly aimed at grad students. Lots of neat graphs! (Each could be a story of its own...) Quiz questions! I pasted it into a blog post: eighteenthelephant.com/2025/06/11/a...
Envious that colleagues at the TSRC workshop “Self-assembly in non-equilibrium systems” are hiking Bridal Veil Falls—but with my talk this afternoon, I stayed back to edit slides, + make a Broader Impacts highlight for NSF. I did hike Sunday, so just missing the “talking science while hiking” part!
June 10, 2025 at 3:58 PM
Envious that colleagues at the TSRC workshop “Self-assembly in non-equilibrium systems” are hiking Bridal Veil Falls—but with my talk this afternoon, I stayed back to edit slides, + make a Broader Impacts highlight for NSF. I did hike Sunday, so just missing the “talking science while hiking” part!
End-of-semester Das Lab dinner tonight. I asked what we should toast to, and one of my mentees said, ‘To science.’ Couldn’t have picked a better one."
May 8, 2025 at 4:03 AM
End-of-semester Das Lab dinner tonight. I asked what we should toast to, and one of my mentees said, ‘To science.’ Couldn’t have picked a better one."
Had a great time speaking at @RITOsher about our work on cartilage shear mechanics and better models for insight into osteoarthritis. Packed room, lots of thoughtful questions, great conversations— thank you organizers and the NSF. Couldn't have done it #WithoutNSF.
www.rit.edu/osher/events...
www.rit.edu/osher/events...
Pfaudler Lecture Series: RIT's Role in a Better Model to Diagnose and Treat Osteoarthritis | Osher Lifelong Learning Institute
Register to attend: https://forms.gle/sTNkvZNgHP6YrxK89Presented by Moumita Das, Associate Professor, RIT School of Physics and Astronomy, College of Science
www.rit.edu
May 4, 2025 at 3:28 AM
Had a great time speaking at @RITOsher about our work on cartilage shear mechanics and better models for insight into osteoarthritis. Packed room, lots of thoughtful questions, great conversations— thank you organizers and the NSF. Couldn't have done it #WithoutNSF.
www.rit.edu/osher/events...
www.rit.edu/osher/events...
Some very happy lab news from this past week— Sam has accepted an offer to join the Physics PhD program at Princeton this fall, and Luke will be heading to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor for a summer REU in Physics. I’m super proud of and excited for them both! 🎉🎆
April 21, 2025 at 12:54 AM
Some very happy lab news from this past week— Sam has accepted an offer to join the Physics PhD program at Princeton this fall, and Luke will be heading to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor for a summer REU in Physics. I’m super proud of and excited for them both! 🎉🎆
Physics and AST spring semester picnic -- collective excitations at low T :)
April 6, 2025 at 8:03 PM
Physics and AST spring semester picnic -- collective excitations at low T :)
Super happy for this new paper from a collaboration with Itai Cohen, Jim Sethna, and Bulbul Chakraborty that just came out in Soft Matter. The first author, William Wang, was an undergrad at Cornell (now CS PhD student at Stanford) when he did the work and an absolute joy to discuss and work with.
Rigidity transitions in anisotropic networks: a crossover scaling analysis
We study how the rigidity transition in a triangular lattice changes as a function of anisotropy by preferentially filling bonds on the lattice in one direction. We discover that the onset of rigidity...
pubs.rsc.org
April 4, 2025 at 10:16 PM
Super happy for this new paper from a collaboration with Itai Cohen, Jim Sethna, and Bulbul Chakraborty that just came out in Soft Matter. The first author, William Wang, was an undergrad at Cornell (now CS PhD student at Stanford) when he did the work and an absolute joy to discuss and work with.
So happy and excited to see this work out! …. and to be a part of this cool story. This was a wonderful collaboration with Sophie Dumont, and her mentees Miquel Rosas-Salvans and Caleb Rux, which started when Miquel came to a seminar I gave at UCSF last year.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
SKAP binding to microtubules reduces friction at the kinetochore-microtubule interface and increases attachment stability under force
The kinetochore links chromosomes to spindle microtubules to drive chromosome segregation at cell division. We recently uncovered that the kinetochore…
www.sciencedirect.com
March 27, 2025 at 3:38 PM
So happy and excited to see this work out! …. and to be a part of this cool story. This was a wonderful collaboration with Sophie Dumont, and her mentees Miquel Rosas-Salvans and Caleb Rux, which started when Miquel came to a seminar I gave at UCSF last year.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...