Connected matter: the architectures of soft materials
Soft materials that we eat, spread, squeeze, or 3D print are typically gels – soft amorphous solids whose structural integrity relies on self-assembled networks of particles, fibers, or agglomerates of proteins, polymers, and colloids. In biology, the space between and within human cells is permeated by self-assembled gel networks, the extra-cellular matrix and the cytoskeleton, whose self- organization and heterogeneity is central to biological functions. Complex network architectures underpin the adaptive, tunable, and nonlinear mechanics of these materials and arise from the interplay of molecular forces, surface interactions, aggregation kinetics and frozen-in stresses. In this colloquium, I will discuss the surprises and mysteries of these “connected” systems, and how rigidity, memory, and failure emerge in their complex architectures.
Bio: Emanuela Del Gado is a physics professor and the Director of the Institute for Soft Matter Synthesis and Metrology at Georgetown University. Del Gado was a Marie Curie Fellow and the Swiss National Science Foundation Assistant Professor at ETH Zurich, and has held visiting position at MIT, ESPCI Paris, ENS Lyon, and University Paris Saclay. She was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2018, she is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (2020), of the Society of Rheology (2023), and an AAAS Fellow (2025). Her research aims at the spatiotemporal characterization of microscopic dynamical processes and the unraveling of microstructural underpinnings in the rheology of soft materials, with a focus on colloidal gels, cement and clay gels, and other soft solids.