ESAM Professor Madhav Mani named Simons Foundation Investigator

Madhav Mani, assistant professor in Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics has been selected as a Simons Investigator by the Simons Foundation. Annually, the Simons Foundation welcomes nominations from universities in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom for the Simons Investigators in the Mathematical Modeling of Living Systems (MMLS) program. The Simons Foundation provides long-term financial support for outstanding young faculty to undertake long-term study of fundamental questions.

Professor Mani’s work uses mathematical models analyze organismal development. First, mathematical models are used to extract mechanistic parameters directly from live-imaging data. Two areas of focus so far are inferring the spatio-temporal patterns of mechanical forces at play during the process of morphogenesis, and inferring the extent of DNA packaging and physical mobility of the genome in the early fly embryo. Second, mathematical models play a central role in classifying and synthesizing observations and measurements made in complex living systems. Often the role of a model can be as simple as guiding what to plot on the x and y axes.

Professor Mani's work is conducted in very close collaboration with experimental labs around the world that focus on developmental biology and biophysics.