Sujit Datta

Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering, and Biophysics; Chief Editor of Reviews of Modern Physics

Research Expertise

Soft Materials
Biological Physics
Complex Systems
Rheology
Active Matter

About

My group's research focuses on the transport and dynamics of complex soft (squishy) and living systems. Our work focuses on complex fluids, gels and bacterial communities/active matter to address challenges in biotechnology, energy, medicine and sustainability. Our work integrates microscopy, microfluidics, materials science and biophysical characterization with theoretical and computational modeling, applying ideas from fluid and solid mechanics, colloidal science, polymer physics, statistical mechanics and network science.

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Publications

Crystallographic Etching of Few-Layer Graphene
Nano Letters
2008
Bacterial hopping and trapping in porous media
Nature Communications
2019
25th Anniversary Article: Double Emulsion Templated Solid Microcapsules: Mechanics And Controlled Release
Advanced Materials
2014
Surface Potentials and Layer Charge Distributions in Few-Layer Graphene Films
Nano Letters
2009
Microfluidic Model Porous Media: Fabrication and Applications
Small
2018
A Bioinspired Elastic Hydrogel for Solar‐Driven Water Purification
Advanced Materials
2021
Perspectives on viscoelastic flow instabilities and elastic turbulence
Physical Review Fluids
2022
Spatial Fluctuations of Fluid Velocities in Flow through a Three-Dimensional Porous Medium
Physical Review Letters
2013
Ultrathin Shell Double Emulsion Templated Giant Unilamellar Lipid Vesicles with Controlled Microdomain Formation
Small
2013
Visualizing multiphase flow and trapped fluid configurations in a model three‐dimensional porous medium
AIChE Journal
2013
Suppressing viscous fingering in structured porous media
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
2018
Mobilization of a trapped non-wetting fluid from a three-dimensional porous medium
Physics of Fluids
2014
Controlling Release From pH-Responsive Microcapsules
Langmuir
2013
Delayed Buckling and Guided Folding of Inhomogeneous Capsules
Physical Review Letters
2012
Rheology of attractive emulsions
Physical Review E
2011
Fluid breakup during simultaneous two-phase flow through a three-dimensional porous medium
Physics of Fluids
2014
Proliferating active matter
Nature Reviews Physics
2023
Pore‐Scale Flow Characterization of Polymer Solutions in Microfluidic Porous Media
Small
2019
Under pressure: Hydrogel swelling in a granular medium
Science Advances
2021
Functionalized Carbon Nanotubes for Detecting Viral Proteins
Nano Letters
2007
Real-Time TEM Imaging of the Formation of Crystalline Nanoscale Gaps
Physical Review Letters
2008
Controlled Buckling and Crumpling of Nanoparticle-Coated Droplets
Langmuir
2010
Confinement and activity regulate bacterial motion in porous media
Soft Matter
2019
Multiscale dynamics of colloidal deposition and erosion in porous media
Science Advances
2020
A geometric criterion for the optimal spreading of active polymers in porous media
Nature Communications
2021
Chemotactic migration of bacteria in porous media
Biophysical Journal
2021
Morphological instability and roughening of growing 3D bacterial colonies
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
2022
Thermoresponsive Polymers for Water Treatment and Collection
Macromolecules
2022
Polymers in the gut compress the colonic mucus hydrogel
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
2016
Bistability in the unstable flow of polymer solutions through pore constriction arrays
Journal of Fluid Mechanics
2020
Individually addressable arrays of replica microbial cultures enabled by splitting SlipChips
Integr. Biol.
2014
Elastic turbulence generates anomalous flow resistance in porous media
Science Advances
2021
Thermally Switched Release from Nanoparticle Colloidosomes
Advanced Functional Materials
2013
Chemotactic Motility-Induced Phase Separation
Physical Review Letters
2023
Chemotactic smoothing of collective migration
eLife
2022
Controlling the Morphology of Polyurea Microcapsules Using Microfluidics
Langmuir
2014
Microfluidic Fabrication of Stable Gas-Filled Microcapsules for Acoustic Contrast Enhancement
Langmuir
2013
Numerical investigation of multistability in the unstable flow of a polymer solution through porous media
Physical Review Fluids
2021
The microfluidic post-array device: high throughput production of single emulsion drops
Lab Chip
2014
Controlling capillary fingering using pore size gradients in disordered media
Physical Review Fluids
2019
Cellular Sensing Governs the Stability of Chemotactic Fronts
Physical Review Letters
2022
Lab on a chip for a low-carbon future
Lab on a Chip
2023
Mucin glycans drive oral microbial community composition and function
npj Biofilms and Microbiomes
2023
A biophysical threshold for biofilm formation
eLife
2022
Gate coupling to nanoscale electronics
Physical Review B
2009
Quick-Release Antifouling Hydrogels for Solar-Driven Water Purification
ACS Central Science
2023
Drainage in a model stratified porous medium
EPL (Europhysics Letters)
2013
Liquid–liquid phase separation within fibrillar networks
Nature Communications
2023
Adsorption and Denaturation of Structured Polymeric Nanoparticles at an Interface
Nano Letters
2018
Active Transport in Complex Environments
Out-of-equilibrium Soft Matter
2023
In Silico Design Enables the Rapid Production of Surface-Active Colloidal Amphiphiles
ACS Central Science
2020
Crack formation and self-closing in shrinkable, granular packings
Soft Matter
2019
Influence of confinement on the spreading of bacterial populations
PLOS Computational Biology
2022
Wetting and energetics in nanoparticle etching of graphene
Journal of Applied Physics
2010
Cooperative size sorting of deformable particles in porous media
Soft Matter
2019
Ribogreen Fluorescent Assay Kinetics to Measure Ribonucleic Acid Loading into Lipid Nanoparticle Carriers
Advanced Materials Interfaces
2024
The Characteristics of Time-Dependent Changes of Coefficient of Permeability for Superabsorbent Polymer-Soil Mixtures
Materials
2022
Impact of confined geometries on hopping and trapping of motile bacteria in porous media
Physical Review E
2021
Tuning Morphologies and Reactivities of Hybrid Organic–Inorganic Nanoparticles
ACS Nano
2022
Forced Imbibition in Stratified Porous Media
Physical Review Applied
2020
Morphogenesis of bacterial cables in polymeric environments
Science Advances
2025
Infection Percolation: A Dynamic Network Model of Disease Spreading
Frontiers in Physics
2021
Scaling laws to predict humidity-induced swelling and stiffness in hydrogels
Soft Matter
2021
Harnessing elastic instabilities for enhanced mixing and reaction kinetics in porous media
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
2024
Poroelastic shape relaxation of hydrogel particles
Soft Matter
2021
Evolution of Polymer Colloid Structure During Precipitation and Phase Separation
JACS Au
2021
(Invited) Atomically Precise Graphene Nanoribbons: From Synthesis to Applications
ECS Meeting Abstracts
2019
Obstructed swelling and fracture of hydrogels
Soft Matter
2024
Homogenizing fluid transport in stratified porous media using an elastic flow instability
Journal of Fluid Mechanics
2023
Using colloidal deposition to mobilize immiscible fluids from porous media
Physical Review Fluids
2021
High-molecular-weight polymers from dietary fiber drive aggregation of particulates in the murine small intestine
eLife
2019
Soft matter physics of the ground beneath our feet
Soft Matter
2024
Data-driven discovery of chemotactic migration of bacteria via coordinate-invariant machine learning
BMC Bioinformatics
2024
Influence of fluid rheology on multistability in the unstable flow of polymer solutions through pore constriction arrays
Journal of Rheology
2025
Interfacial Morphodynamics of Proliferating Microbial Communities
Physical Review X
2025
Hysteresis in the thermally induced phase transition of cellulose ethers
Soft Matter
2022
Scaling Law for Cracking in Shrinkable Granular Packings
Physical Review Letters
2019
Tough and Recyclable Phase-Separated Supramolecular Gels via a Dehydration–Hydration Cycle
JACS Au
2023
Forced imbibition in stratified porous media: Fluid dynamics and breakthrough saturation
Physical Review Fluids
2021
Interplay between environmental yielding and dynamic forcing modulates bacterial growth
Biophysical Journal
2024
High-molecular-weight polymers from dietary fiber drive aggregation of particulates in the murine small intestine
Unknown Venue
2018
Spatial self-organization of confined bacterial suspensions
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
2025
Modeling the Transition between Localized and Extended Deposition in Flow Networks through Packings of Glass Beads
Physical Review Letters
2023
An energy-optimization method to study gel-swelling in confinement
Soft Matter
2023
Elastocapillary network model of inhalation
Physical Review Research
2020
On the growth and form of bacterial colonies
Nature Reviews Physics
2025
3D Printing Bacteria to Study Motility and Growth in Complex 3D Porous Media
Journal of Visualized Experiments
2024
Chemorepellent-Loaded Nanocarriers Promote Localized Interference of Escherichia coli Transport to Inhibit Biofilm Formation
ACS Applied Bio Materials
2022
Editorial: Active matter in complex environments
Frontiers in Physics
2022
Reversible pH-Driven Flocculation of Amphiphilic Polyelectrolyte-Coated Nanoparticles for Rapid Filtration and Concentration
ACS Applied Nano Materials
2021
Expansion and rupture of charged microcapsules
Mater. Horiz.
2014
Influence of bacterial swimming and hydrodynamics on attachment of phages
Soft Matter
2024
Pattern formation by bacteria-phage interactions
Unknown Venue
2023
Microfluidic Fabrication of Giant Unilamellar Lipid Vesicles with Controlled Microdomain Formation
Biophysical Journal
2014
Harnessing an elastic flow instability to improve the kinetic performance of chromatographic columns
Journal of Chromatography A
2024
Getting out of a tight spot: Cooperative unclogging of hydrogel particles in disordered porous media
Physical Review Research
2025
Electrostatic Force Microscopy of Nanofibers and Carbon Nanotubes: Quantitative Analysis Using Theory and Experiment
MRS Proceedings
2007
Tutorial: Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Microstructure and Transport Phenomena in Glassy Polymers
Soft Materials
2007
Morphodynamics of surface-attached active drops
Nature Communications
2026
TIB-arXiv: An Alternative Search Portal for the arXiv Pre-print Server
Lecture Notes in Computer Science
2018
Death & Chemotaxis : Bacterial chemotaxis enables collective escape from phage predation
Unknown Venue
2026
Microbial mutualism generates multistable and oscillatory growth dynamics
Unknown Venue
2022
Naegleria amoebae seek confinement and crawl persistently through narrow spaces
Unknown Venue
2025
Steady viscoelastic flow around high-aspect-ratio, low-blockage-ratio microfluidic cylinders
Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics
2018
A nutrient bottleneck controls antibiotic efficacy in structured bacterial populations
Nature Communications
2026
Soil texture regulates bacterial motility and chemotactic recruitment to plant roots
Unknown Venue
2025
Light sheet imaging in granular materials: interdisciplinary opportunities
Granular Matter
2026
Spatial self-organization of confined bacterial suspensions
Unknown Venue
2025
Elastic instability of wormlike micelle solution flow in serpentine channels
Soft Matter
2025
Microbes get by with a little help from their friends
Nature Chemical Engineering
2025
Life at low Reynolds number isn’t such a drag
Nature Chemical Engineering
2024
Fluid drainage in erodible porous media
Physical Review Research
2023
Flow-Driven Channelization in a Particle-Filled Porous Medium
Album of Porous Media
2023
Roughening instability of growing 3D bacterial colonies
Unknown Venue
2022
Chapter 9. Transport of Polymer Colloids in Porous Media
Soft Matter Series
2019

Education

California Institute of Technology

Postdoctoral Fellow / 2017

Harvard University

Ph.D., A. M. / 2013

University of Pennsylvania

M. S., B. A. / 2008

Experience

California Institute of Technology

Professor of Chemical Engineering Bioengineering and Biophysics / September, 2024Present

Leads research, teaching, and mentorship in Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering, and Biophysics, focusing on complex soft and living systems, integrating experimental and theoretical approaches.

Reviews of Modern Physics

Chief Editor / September, 2025Present

Oversees the editorial process, strategy, and content of Reviews of Modern Physics, ensuring scientific rigor and relevance.

Princeton University

Associate Professor of Chemical & Biological Engineering / July, 2023August, 2024

Conducted research on soft and living matter, mentored students, taught courses, and contributed to the development of bioengineering initiatives and research centers.

Assistant Professor of Chemical & Biological Engineering / August, 2017July, 2023

Conducted research on soft and living matter, mentored students, taught courses, and contributed to the development of bioengineering initiatives and research centers.

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