Group Updates

Roseanna appointed to Research Council, Taylor Geospatial Institute

The Zia Lab is moving to MU!

Professor Zia was named the Associate Dean for Research and Dave Wollersheim Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Missouri College of Engineering.


The Zia Lab welcomes Umesh Dhumal, Gesse Roure, Vishal Sivisankar and Chunyang Lu to the Lab!

Brian, Jen and Theo receive TAing awards!
Brian, Jen and Theo posed with awards

Brian defends and gets married!

Jen Hofmann wins the 2022 ARCS Scholarship

Jae Hwan joins the group

Professor Zia interviewed for the New Yorker
JCVI-syn3A, the “minimal cell,” is a base model designed for expansion. Illustration by David S. Goodsell

Our work on the colloidal physics of life was featured on a recent New Yorker article title, “A journey to the center of our cells.”


Professor Zia featured on Russ Altman’s “The Future of Everything” podcast

Professor Zia sat down with Russ Altman to discuss the physics of colloidal gels, suspensions and glasses, and explains how this physics can improve our fundamental understanding of cellular biology. Listen to to podcast.


Shriram Shreks win!

The Shriram Shreks, featuring Zia group members Alp Sunol, Jen Hofmann, and Theo Yang, defeated a strong team from the Electrical Engineering department on Monday, August 23, 2021 to win the Stanford Intramural Soccer Beginner League championship. They won decisively with a score of 6-3. PROTECT THE SWAMP!


Theo Yang joins the group!

Akshay gets married!!

Congratulations to Akshay and Pooja for their recent marriage at the end of January. Best wishes for a long and happy life together!


Roseanna Zia named a Lee Otterson Faculty Scholar in the Stanford School of Engineering

Roseanna Zia awarded tenure!

Effective January 1, 2021, Roseanna Zia was promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure.


Aaron Brown joins the group!

Maggie Braunreuther selected for multiple awards

Maggie was selected to attend the OSG User School for High Throughput Computing. This workshop teaches graduate students how to use high-throughput computing systems to run large-scale computing applications that are at the heart of today’s cutting-edge science. Click here to learn more.

Maggie was also selected to attend the TACC Summer Institute for Reproducible Science. This program teaches students how to build complex scientific workflows for large-scale computing on the cloud.


Derek Huang is awarded NRC Postdoctoral Fellowship at NIST

The NIST NRC Postdoctoral Program supports a nationwide competitive postdoctoral program administered in cooperation with the National Academies/National Research Council (NRC). The postdoctoral program brings research scientists and engineers of unusual promise and ability to perform advanced research related to the NIST mission, introduces the latest university research results and techniques to NIST scientific programs, strengthens mutual communication with university researchers, shares NIST unique research facilities with the U.S. scientific and engineering communities, and provides a valuable mechanism for the transfer of research results from NIST to the scientific and engineering communities. Find more about the program here.


Galen Wang accepts position at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab

Galen will be an Applied Mathematics and Computational Science Postdoctoral Scholar, and he will be working on multiscale stochastic modeling of complex fluids at mesoscale. Galen will start in September 2020.


Henry Chu to start faculty position at University of Florida

The University of Florida is a top-ranked public research university located in Gainesville, Florida. Henry will start in January 2021 in the department of chemical engineering.


Corinne Weeks is awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students who are pursuing full-time research-based master’s and doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) or in STEM education. The GRFP provides three years of support for the graduate education of individuals who have demonstrated their potential for significant research achievements in STEM or STEM education. Find the full list of award recipients here.


Maggie Braunreuther joins the group!

Lilian Johnson and Roseanna Zia’s 2019 article is one of the “10 most cited” of 2019 in J. Rheology

Lilian Johnson and Roseanna Zia’s 2019 article, “Influence of structure on the linear response rheology of colloidal gels,” is one of the “10 most cited 2019” in the Journal of Rheology. Find the paper here. See the other top cited articles here.


Roseanna Zia receives Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers

The PECASE is the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government to outstanding scientists and engineers who are beginning their independent research careers and who show exceptional promise for leadership in science and technology. Established in 1996, the PECASE acknowledges the contributions scientists and engineers have made to the advancement of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and to community service as demonstrated by scientific leadership, public education, and community outreach.


Graduate student Christian Aponte-Rivera inducted into the Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society

Graduate student Christian Aponte-Rivera has been inducted into the Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society in recognition of his scholarly achievements. For more information about the Bouchet Society, visit their website.


Dr. Poornima Padmanabhan selected for 2017 Cook Award

Postdoctoral researcher Dr. Padmanabhan has been selected to receive the 2017 Cook Award for outstanding service to the College of Engineering. The award honors individuals in recognition of their commitment to women’s issues and their contributions for changing the climate for women at Cornell. The Cook Award is named in honor of the late Constance E. Cook, Cornell’s first woman vice president, and the late Professor Emeritus Alice E. Cook, founding member of the Advisory Committee on the Status of Women.


Zia group work on colloidal gels featured on podcast and in feature article for UT Austin’s TACC

Recent research from the Zia group on the mechanical and structural properties of colloidal gels was featured at the Texas Advanced Computing Center. Work on pair mobilities in crowded suspensions was also spotlighted.


Cornell ChemE Car Team takes first place

Cornell ChemE Car Team takes First Place at the 2015 National AIChE Competition in Salt Lake City, UT! This marks the team’s fourth national first-place win.


Roseanna invited to attend White House workshop on the National Strategic Computing Initiative

On July 29, 2015, the President issued an Executive Order creating the NSCI, a whole-of-government effort to develop a multi-agency vision and Federal investment strategy that maximizes the benefits of high performance computing to strengthen the Nation’s economic competitiveness, increase sector- based productivity, unleash new scientific discovery, and grow regional innovation ecosystems. Read more about the initiative here.


Roseanna Zia selected to participate in NAE Frontiers of Engineering

Roseanna has been selected to take part in the National Academy of Engineering’s 21st annual U.S. Frontiers of Engineering symposium, Sept. 9-11, in Irvine, Calif.


Cover of the Journal of Rheology

September 2014 Issue of J. Rheol. features Roseanna and graduate student Ben Landrum’s article “A micro-mechanical study of coarsening and rheology of colloidal gels: cage building, cage hopping, and Smoluchowski’s ratchet.” R. N. Zia, B. J. Landrum, & W. B. Russel, Journal of Rheology 58 (5): 1121-1157.


Roseanna selected for National Academy of Engineering’s 2014 Frontiers of Engineering Education Symposium

The vision of the Frontiers of Engineering Education (FOEE) is to strengthen the engineering and innovation capability of the nation by catalyzing a vibrant community of emerging engineering education leaders. The FOEE Symposium brings together some of the nation’s most engaged and innovative engineering educators in order to recognize, reward, and promote effective, substantive, and inspirational engineering education. Learn more about the FOEE Symposium.


Undergraduate student Ruhani Arya wins the Tau Beta Pi Scholarship

Tau Beta Pi Scholarships are awarded to junior members on a competitive basis of high scholarship, campus leadership and service, and promise of future contributions to the engineering profession. Learn more about the TBP Scholarship Program.


Roseanna wins ONR Young Investigator Award

The ONR Young Investigator Program identifies academic scientists and engineers who show exceptional promise for doing creative research. Only 24 ONR Young Investigators were selected nationwide this year. As an ONR Young Investigator, Roseanna will develop new models for kinetically arrested states of microstructured soft matter that will elucidate correlations and collective behavior via universal phase mapping.


Roseanna receives NSF CAREER Award

January 2014 Roseanna’s proposal “CAREER: Rheology, Stability, and Sudden Collapse of Colloidal Gels: A Micromechanical Study” was selected for the NSF CAREER award. The goal of the proposal is to develop a predictive theory for gel stability by discovering and elucidating the underlying mechanisms of the sudden collapse of colloidal gels, with a view toward the rational design of soft biomaterials such as injectable drug delivery platforms and transplantable tissue scaffolds.


Cover of the Rheology Bulletin

January 2014 Issue of The Rheology Bulletin features Zia Group research on colloidal gels, featuring Roseanna’s work with Zia Group graduate student Benjamin Landrum.


Cover of the Journal of Rheology

January 2014 Issue of J. Rheol. features Roseanna’s article “Large amplitude oscillatory microrheology,”, J. W. Swan, R. N. Zia & J. F. Brady, Journal of Rheology 58 (1): 1-30.


Stampede Year 1 Retrospective

January 2014 The Zia Group featured in the NSF XSEDE/Stampede Computational Cluster “Year 1 Retrospective.”


Roseanna receives NSF BRIGE Award

August 2013 Roseanna’s proposal ‘”Active micro-rheology with spherical micro-confinement: A model for intracellular transport” was selected for the NSF BRIGE award. The Broadening Participation Research Initiation Grants in Engineering (BRIGE) solicitation promotes the development of early career faculty who will become champions for diversity and broadening participation of underrepresented groups in engineering.


Publication Award 2013, The Journal of Rheology

Roseanna’s article “Microviscosity, microdiffusivity, and normal stresses in colloidal dispersions” was selected to receive the Publication Award for 2013. (R. N. Zia & J. F. Brady, Journal of Rheology 56 (5): 1175-1208.)


Cover of The Journal of Rheology

March 2013 Issue features Roseanna’s article “Stress development, relaxation, and memory in colloidal dispersions: Transient nonlinear microrheology,”, R. N. Zia & J. F. Brady, Journal of Rheology 57 (2): 457-492.


Roseanna named James C. & Rebecca Q. Morgan Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellow

December 14, 2012 Professor Roseanna N. Zia has been named a James C. & Rebecca Q. Morgan Faculty Fellow, in honor of the Morgans’ generous gift “aimed toward recruiting emerging ‘stars’ to the Cornell Faculty, as part of the Faculty Renewal Sesquicentennial Challenge”.


MAE grad student Henry Chu joins the Zia Group!

Henry is a first-year graduate student in Mechanical Engineering. His previous undergraduate research included studies of liquid-gas interfacial effects in superhydrophobic channels for fluid flow optimization in micro-electro-mechanical systems.


Eric Burkholder wins the Scheele Outstanding Junior Award!

The award was established in memory of Professor George Scheele, former associate director to the school, to recognize academic excellence, achievement in campus and professional activities.


CBE grad student Christian Aponte joins the Zia Group!

Christian is a first-year graduate student in Chemical Engineering. His undergraduate research included dynamic simulations of confined magnetic particles, and Brownian dynamics simulations of catalytic nano-motors.


Roseanna invited to talk to Saint Joseph’s

Collaborator Professor Piotr Habdas invited Roseanna to give a seminar in the Physics Department at SJU. Habdas investigates the structural and rheological properties of colloidal suspensions, particularly near the glass transition.


Undergraduate Eric Burkholder joins the Zia Group!

Eric is a rising junior who will work on asymptotic solution for the microrheology of sticky colloids


Roseanna selected in 2012 Academic Venture Fund Competition

Roseanna selected in 2012 Academic Venture Fund Competition with Susan Daniel, Itai Cohen, and Beth Ahner. In 2008 Cornell created the David R. Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future to respond to the growing need to treat problems related to energy, the environment, and economic development as interdependent, connected and transcendent of individual disciplines.