Mahesh Bandi

Mahesh Bandi and Madhu Venkadesan are co-investigators on a project funded by the Human Frontier Science Program to study the biomechanical function and evolution of the human foot. As part of this project, we are working on problems ranging from creating new force measurement devices to building robotic feet. Mahesh also has overlapping research interest with Madan Rao. Mahesh's interests lie the mechanical response and dynamical behaviour of granular media,] amorphous solids such as bubble rafts, solid-fluid interfaces etc. His experimental program coincides with Madan Rao's interests in the theories of no affine deformations in crystalline, amorphous and network solids. For instance, Madan Rao's group has recently shown the existence of a hidden
mechanical critical point in a model crystalline solid subject to pure shear. This work was part of the PhD thesis of Tamoghna Das, who is now a post-doc with Mahesh. It would be fascinating to test some of these ideas in the bubble raft set up. As a result of Prof. Bandi's visit to NCBS, we now share a postdoc who does experimental work in Japan, and a combination of human subject experiments
and control theoretic work in my lab.