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Department of         Mathematical Sciences
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Faculty
kinderlehrer
David Kinderlehrer, Alumni Professor of Mathematical Sciences,
    Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
E-mail: davidk@andrew.cmu.edu
Office: Wean Hall 7208
Phone: 412-268-5729


Research:

How do the systems we find in nature evolve and why? Some of the most challenging of these involve interactions among many communicating length and time scales and, even when equations for their motion have been written down on paper, little is understood about their nature. They may be only metastable, for example, hovering for long periods away from equilibrium. They may involve complicated microstructure that can only be interpreted through some coarse graining devices. We find them everywhere, in both material and biological environments. At this moment we are studying complex features of grain growth (http://mimp.mems.cmu.edu) and fluctuation driven transport in soft systems, like protein motors and liquid crystals. Below are both some older references and some new ones. We know the secret code of rocks (and metals too)! Glance at the 200 word summary Microstructure meets Boltzmann for 11-CNA-001. By the way, have a weakness for Las Vegas? Try Heath, Kinderlehrer and Kowalczyk. Most often, I find myself in the company of colleagues who are not mathematicians. We are learning together what we could not do in our native disciplines: new science. Mathematics can say something about the world. Want to help? Come to Carnegie Mellon! Here is a movie clip, of grain growth, the evolution of polycrystalline interfaces, by our group, joint work with Shlomo Ta'asan, Katayun Barmak, Maria Emelianenko, Eva Eggeling, Yekaterina Epshteyn and Richard Sharp.

Recent CNA Publications: