Abhishek was born and raised in the capital city of New Delhi, India. He earned his undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, where he worked on unit operations in biopharmaceutical processing. He then obtained his PhD in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University where he performed simulations of faceted nanoparticles advised by Fernando Escobedo. He has also been a part of science communication and diversity efforts, including producing for Science Blender podcast (scienceblender.com). Outside of research he has broad interests in art and philosophy, and enjoys listening to music, exploring outdoors, and playing board games.
Trained in statistical mechanics-derived molecular simulation of phase transitions, Abhishek's research deals with development and application of heuristics rooted in mathematics to describe physical phenomena, often (but not always) in the form of order parameters. He has interests in active materials, especially materials that respond to stimulus in a tunable manner. Currently he is involved with multiple research directions within the de Pablo group, including: (a) elucidating the role of force chain networks in frictional shear jamming, (b) tuning of allosteric networks with various characteristics, and (c) developing an order parameter for polymeric mesophases. Across these directions, he is leveraging tools from network sciences to understand these systems. In long term he is interested in simple physical systems that can mimic behaviors of living systems, such as memory and learning.