香蕉秀

Udayan Mohanty

I grew up in Norman, Oklahoma. I took my first advanced classes in chemistry and physics under the tutelage of Mrs. J. Hartwyck who displayed a love of science. In the tenth grade, I was fortunate to meet C. W. Berenda and R. Kantowski from the University of Oklahoma. Under their guidance, I learned the art of doing scientific research. In particular, I worked on gravitational lenses that led me to learn linear algebra, tensor algebra, differential geometry and writing codes in Fortran. My work in relativity led to my being named a semi-finalist at the Westinghouse Science Talent Search (now called Intel Science Talent Search). Norman High School provided me with an excellent background in science and mathematics for my undergraduate studies at Cornell University. At Cornell, I enjoyed learning quantum mechanics from H. A. Bethe and K.Gottfried, astrophyics with C. Sagan, statistical mechanics courses from M. E. Fisher and V. Ambegaogar, biophysics from Aaron Lewis and Watt Webb, and mathematics from R. Cook, F. L. Spitzer, K. Ito, R. Hamilton and H. Kesten. Robert Cook itrained me for the William Lowell Putnam mathematics competition (my teammate was D. Fisher, Stanford). I carried out research at Cornell鈥檚 electron synchrotron laboratory (designing superconducting radio frequency accelerating system for electron storage ring, CESR) under the guidance of Raphael Littauer. It was at Cornell that I met K. G. Wilson, who had already developed his now famous work on renormalization group approach to second order phase transition. My interactions with Wilson would have a deep impact in my future research activity.

I enrolled in graduate studies at Brown University due to three distinguished scientists, J. H. Gibbs, L. Cooper, and L. P. Kadanoff. Kadanoff encouraged me to look at A. Migdal鈥檚 decimentation approach (preprint of the paper was in Russian !) to renormalization group. I extended Midgal鈥檚 approach to d-dimensions lattice models. Kadanoff decided to leave for University of Chicago and I continued my graduate studies with J. H. Gibbs. Gibbs suggested that I try to generalize Mayer鈥檚 cluster expansion so that it would be capable of describing the gas to liquid transition in the pressure-volume plane. My progress in this problem (with B. Bagchi), and surprising prediction of bimodal cluster size distribution in ideal Bose gas, caught the attention of J. E. Mayer who was then at University of California at San Diego. Mayer invited me to come to University of California at San Diego as a joint postdoctoral fellow with K. E. Schuler. At Brown, I also collaborated with Leon N. Copper, who over two and half decades earlier developed the 香蕉秀S theory of superconductivity. At Brown, I was fortunate to have taken mathematics classes from Chai-Hsing Su, D. Mumford, H. Kushner, W. H. Fleming and C. M. Dafermos. In physics and chemistry, I am indebted to my teachers G. Guralnik, A. Jevicki, S. C. Ying, H. J. Maris, P. Estrup and R. H. Cole.

At University of California at San Diego (UCSD), I worked with K. E. Schuler and developed stochastic techniques to describe transport properties in disordered systems. Mayer introduced me to B. H. Zimm, his first graduate student, who was now a distinguished faculty member at UCSD. I learned from Zimm most of what I understand on nucleic acids. Zimm鈥檚 approach to scientific research profoundly inspired my research in biophysics even a decade later. Zimm and Schuler nominated me for a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows at Harvard University. S. A. Rice invited me to join University of Chicago with the freedom of working on any problem. At the University of Chicago, I worked on transport properties of liquid metal surfaces and glassy state of polymers (with K. Freed and M. Bawendi). It was in Chicago that I learned in a graduate class the mathematics of black holes from C. Subramanium. Due to the intellectual freedom, I soon developed my ideas on supercooled liquids, quasicrystals, and solid-liquid phase transition.

During the first few years at Boston College, I worked on statistical mechanical theory of elastic constants of icosahedral quasicrystals and liquid-solid transition (with G. Jones). My interactions with K. G. Wilson (and Steven White) made me think and implement renormalization group techniques to describe chemical bonding at the valence level in several diatomic molecules. I learned new techniques in non-equilibrium statistical mechanics during my regular visit to work with Irwin Oppenheim at MIT (and N. Van Kampen (Leidens) who was a regular visitor at MIT). My interactions with R. A. Marcus (Caltech) made me truly appreciate the importance of understanding experiments; we collaborated on ion-transfer reactions across liquid-liquid interface (unpublished work). I worked for the next few years trying to establish a connection between kinetics and thermodynamics of supercooled liquids. By 1994, I had already started to think hard about basic problems in nucleic acids. My tutelage in biophysics from M. Roberts (and my work with her and A. Redfield (Brandeis) on phospholipids), a colleague in my department, and B. Zimm鈥檚 influence made me rethink some pressing issues related to mechanism of migration of oligomeric DNA fragments in gels. D. M. Crothers (Yale), a biophysical chemist and former graduate student of Zimm, invited me to his laboratory at Yale University. I spent the next few years investigating the difficult problem of describing quantitatively the dynamics of intrinsically curved DNA (A-tracts) with T. Haran (Technion, Israel), and, in general, on polyelectrolyte behavior of nucleic acids with G. Manning (Rutgers), N. Stellwagen (Iowa), J. Onuchic (Rice), R. Hayes (U Michigan) and P. Whitford (Northeastern). D. P. Bartel (MIT) made me think about RNA. This led to my work on evolution properties of random RNA sequences. I must mention my scientific interactions with C. H. Taubes (Harvard University). It is with him that I solved two difficult problems: hydrodynamic motions of A-tracts in gels and bounds on excess ion atmosphere around nucleic acids. It was rather kind for G. Parisi (Univ. of Rome La Sapienza, Italy) to educate me on replica techniques during an extended visit to his lab. This helped me establish a surprising link between replica breaking parameter and Narayanaswamy-Moynihan non-linear parameter in low temperature glasses and that ultimately led to my work on p53 peptides (with G. Krilov). Finally, I am indebted to Steven Chu (Stanford) for introducing me to single molecule spectroscopy of the ribosome and for his collaborative efforts that span a decade.

I have received recognition for my research: Westingtinghouse Science Talent semi-finalist ; Max Plank fellowship; Fellow, Japan Society for promotion of science (elected); Fellow, AAAS (elected); Fellow Laureate Mentor Award, Davidson Institute; Fellow, American Physical Society (elected); Fellow, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundaton (elected); Fellow, Royal Society (UK), Chemistry (elected). I have been a visiting faculty at various academic institutions that includes Yale, Harvard, MIT, Caltech, Stanford, Univ. of California at San Diego, Rice University and Center for Theoretical Biological Physics, Universita di Roma La Sapienza, Max Plank Institute for Polymerf枚rschung, and Okayama University. I have mentored over forty students. Several former students have gone on for independent academic careers. Googlescholariindex 50, Erd枚snumber 4.

Scientific accomplishments
Structural and dynamics of p53 stapled peptides; scaling of dynamics in supercooled liquids; A- tracts and DNA bending; entropic barriers in supercooled liquids; glassy state in hydrated protein; replica breaking symmetry parameter and its relation to Narayanaswamy-Moynihan non-linear parameter; bifurcation of alpha and beta relaxation modes in supercooled liquids; renormalization group approach to bondiing in diatomic molecules; intramolecular dynamics in optical Kerr effect spectroscopy of small molecules; molecular theory of freezing; elastic modulus of icosahedral quasi-crystals; generalization of Flory-Huggins model; conformation order of random RNA sequences; coupling of outer-sphere Mg2+聽and RNA dynamics; all-atom structure-based model of RNAs, ribosome, and development of OPENSMOG; generalization of Manning counterion condensation model to RNAs and riboswitches; polyelectrolyte behavior of ionic oligomers; large-scale conformational dynamics of ribosome.