I have always been interested in examining whether seemingly unconnected areas of my life actually have intersections. For example, two areas that have always interested me are the mechanics of machines such as taking apart lawn mowers in my youth and the wonders of nature. While they seem unconnected, I wonder what are their commonalities, which has lead me to work on this intersection for almost 2 decades toward unifying theories between them. Here I will present how my lab has been looking for nature‚Äôs unifying theories that are threaded throughout life. My lab approaches this by envisioning different biological organisms as ‚Äúsystems‚Äù and is examining how these unconnected systems intersect. We use our approaches as engineers for investigating these systems in nature looking for unifying principles with some of the same fundamental approaches used on machines such as planes, trains, and automobiles. The biological systems range from mammalian cells to microorganisms to plants (e.g. neurons, magnetic bacteria, energy generating bacteria, Xenopus laevis, stem cells) and we apply principles from mechanical engineering fields (e.g. solid mechanics, control theory, fluidics, heat transfer, design) to understand how these principles may apply across diverse nature-based systems. In addition, I will present in this talk our approaches of using solid mechanics in areas such as cell mechanotransduction. We pursue these goals through developing and utilizing unique custom-built systems as well as nanotechnology, microtechnology, and computational biology. These intersections are especially fascinating to me as biological systems have evolved for distinct reasons (the ‚Äúinitial and boundary conditions‚Äù are different). In addition, as an engineer, I truly am interested in building new systems from the knowledge that we obtain in a similar thought process as we use information to build new systems. Thus, I will also present how our lab thinks about nature-inspired design principles at the molecular and cellular levels to work toward generating novel approaches for contributing to technology development and medical applications. 
 


Nature's Unifying Theories and How They Can Be Used for Good

The Virtual Technical Meeting of the Society of Engineering Science 2020 is the first fully virtual meeting of the SES community to envision and connect during the hiatus created by Covid-19, providing a platform for the exchange of ideas, and to showcase the latest research in the field of engineering science.

[Visit the Programme](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BoCPBzrr1IQFANuzQI8a-paXCJoOcCkB/view?usp=sharing) | [Visit the Prerecorded Video/Poster List](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XHLeEXJxEFjCSsNScuLDfMwy1X7oy7oJ/view?usp=sharing) | [View the Session Grid](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VeDOC-Ev5m_ymYjXnjaXSZHR3_DARiLt/view?usp=sharing)