- Office Location
Office location: NS E187
Bio:
Dr. Phan earned his Ph.D. in Physics from Princeton University. Since then, he has explored many areas of science, working in biology at Yale University, in machine learning at Johns Hopkins University, and on cancer chemotherapeutic treatments with clinicians at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institute. Now at Claremont, he wants to focus more on teaching while pursuing research on bacteria and robotics (and more).
Alongside his academic career, Dr. Phan coaches the Vietnamese national teams for the Asian and International Physics Olympiads (APhO and IPhO). He remains committed to supporting the next generation of scientists in his home country, through outreach and collaborations.
PhD, Princeton University
BA, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Biophysics, Robophysics, Soft/Condensed Matter Physics, Machine Learning, Stochastic Thermodynamics, Partial Differential Equation, and more.
Phan, T. V., Morris, R., Black, M. E., Do, T. K., Lin, K. C., Nagy, K., Sturm, J. C., Bos, J., & Austin, R. H. (2020). “Bacterial Route Finding and Collective Escape in Mazes and Fractals.” Physical Review X, 10(3), 031017.
Wired Magazine: “These Bacteria Ate Their Way Through a Really Tricky Maze”
https://www.wired.com/story/these-bacteria-ate-their-way-through-a-really-tricky-maze/
Wang, G.*, Phan, T. V.*, Li, S., Wang, J., Peng, Y., Chen, G., Goldman, D. I., Levin, S. A., Pienta, K., Amend, S., Austin, R. H., & Liu, L. (2022). “Robots as Models of Evolving Systems.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(12), e2120019119. [*co-first authors].
Physics Today: “Evolving robots could optimize chemotherapy”
https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/Online/4906/Evolving-robots-could-optimize-chemotherapy
PNAS Commentary: “Let the robotic game begin”
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2204152119
Guo, B.*, Ro, S.*, Shih, A., Phan, T. V., Austin, R. H., Martiniani, S., Levine, D., & Chaikin, P. M. (2022). “Model-free measurement of local entropy production and extractable work in active matter.” Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 220601. [*co-first authors].
The cover picture of Physical Review Letter Volume 129 Issue 22:
https://journals.aps.org/prl/issues/129/22/