Advent calendar - December 9th - Nayan Vengallur

In the Zernike Institute Advent Calendar, we are presenting 24 short spotlights in December. In these specials, we highlight PhD students, postdocs, support staff and technicians of our research groups and team - providing a glimpse in their typical day at work. In Episode 9 meet Nayan Vengallur, PhD student in the Micromechanics group.

I am Nayan, a PhD student in the micromechanics unit supervised by Andrea Giuntoli. Our group specializes in using molecular dynamics simulations to model soft matter systems ranging from hydrogels to self-healing glasses.

I work with complexes formed by oppositely charged polymers called complex coacervates. In living cells, these structures play a key role in forming membrane-less organelles. They also have fascinating applications, such as in drug delivery and underwater adhesives. My project focuses on what happens to these complexes in such complex environments. This is really hard to predict theoretically because of the many different interactions and length scales it involves, which is where coarse-grained simulations come in handy. We simplify the phenomenon to its bare bones that can still provide useful predictions.

What does a typical workday look like for you?

One of the perks of simulation work is its flexibility—you just need a laptop. So I usually start my work from home during breakfast. The first item on my agenda? Adding tasks to my calendar. The sheer shame of dragging yesterday’s incomplete tasks over is usually enough to kick-start my productivity.

After coming to the office, some days I run small test simulations on my local computer. This involves the LAMMPS (simulation engine) documentation on one screen and my scripts on the other and furiously going back and forth between them trying to get rid of all the bugs. Later, I copy them to the supercomputer for proper simulation and let them run for a few days.

On other days, it’s all about writing Python scripts to analyse the completed simulation data. I turn the results into plots and save them in a PowerPoint file—my digital version of a lab notebook.

After a long day at work, I enjoy relaxing with a sci-fi/fantasy book from my ever-growing to-be-read pile.

See all Advent Calendar items 2024 here!