About the PI

During a PhD in physics at the University of Chicago with William Irvine, I studied fundamental questions in the physics of soft materials, studying the behavior of curved elastic sheets (Nat. Mat. 2017; Soft Matter 2018), mechanical topological metamaterials (Nat. Phys. 2018, PRB 2018a,b, PRE 2021), and fluid turbulence (Nat. Phys. 2023). The interplay between geometry and mechanics finds new life in living tissues during development. In this context, tissue geometry and patterned forces interact with genetic patterning. For my postdoc at UC Santa Barbara with Sebastian Streichan & Boris Shraiman, I combined advanced imaging, optogenetic techniques, and modeling to understand folding of the Drosophila midgut at a quantitative level (eLife 2022), building new computational tools for taming complex tissue shape change (Nat. Meth. 2023). The Mitchell Lab aims to understand visceral organ morphogenesis in model organs in Drosophila and zebrafish embryos, using both experimental and theoretical approaches. Our work is funded by the NICHD, an institute of the NIH. In addition to research, we value teaching, mentoring, and building an inclusive culture in science. Among service and outreach efforts, I am currently the Early Career Member-At-Large for APS Division of Biological Physics.

Center for Living Systems Investigator
Committee on Development, Regeneration, & Stem Cell Biology (DRSB)
NSF-Simons National Institute for Theory and Mathematics in Biology