Education

(1) PhD in physics. Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA, USA (August 2015 - present). (2) Masters in mathematics. Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA, USA (August 2015 - present). (3) Integrated Masters of Science in Physics. UM-DAE Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.

Honors & Awards

(1) STAMI Graduate Fellowship awarded by Science & Technology of Advance Materials & Interfaces (STAMI), Georgia Tech for excellence in research. (2) The Scientific Travel Award (STAP), Science & Technology of Advance Materials & Interfaces (STAMI), Georgia Tech. (3) Amelio Travel Award, The School of Physics, Georgia Tech. (4) Graduate Conference Fund, Student Government Association (SGA), Georgia Tech. (5) Certificate of Appreciation, National Board of Higher Mathematics (NBHM), Government of India for excelling in the Madhava Mathematics Competition (MMC). (6) DST-INSPIRE scholar – a scholarship awarded as a student stipend to pursue the Integrated Masters program.

Research

I am interested in studying and developing models of soft matter systems across multiple length scales using tools from geometry and topology. Some of my previous and current interests are as follows: (1) Triply-periodic minimal surfaces and their applications to optical metamaterials & photonic crystals design, bone scaffolding etc. (2) Applications of knot theory to the topology of knitted fabrics. (3) Topological implications of knotting in physics of complex bights & slip knots. (4) A thermodynamic framework to study the space of configurations of open-ended knots. (5) Geometry of soft biological membranes, phase separating interfaces etc.

Papers

(1) Shashank G. Markande, Elisabetta A. Matsumoto. “Knotty knits are tangles on tori”, Proceedings of Bridges 2020: Mathematics, Music, Art, Architecture, Culture in press (2020), and available at http://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2020/bridges2020-103.html. (2) Shashank G. Markande, Matthias Saba, Gerd E. Shröder-Turk, Elisabetta A. Matsumoto. “The QTZ-QZD Surfaces: A chiral family of triply-periodic minimal surfaces derived from the quartz network”, Proceedings of Royal Society A, under review (2018), and available at https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.07034.

Memberships & Committees

(1) Division of Soft Matter Physics (DSOFT), American Physical Society (APS). (2) Group on Statistical & Nonlinear Physics (GSNP), American Physical Society (APS). (3) Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM).

Works in Progress

Shashank G. Markande, Elisabetta A. Matsumoto. “A knot-theoretic study of two-periodic knitted fabrics”.