Dr. Igor S. Aronson

The PhysOrg article Argonne scientists use bacteria to power simple machines said

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University, Evanston, have discovered that common bacteria can turn microgears when suspended in a solution, providing insights for design of bio-inspired dynamically adaptive materials for energy.
 
“The gears are a million times more massive than the bacteria,” said physicist and principal investigator Igor Aronson. “The ability to harness and control the power of bacterial motions is an important requirement for further development of hybrid biomechanical systems driven by microorganisms.”

Igor S. Aronson, Ph.D., FAPS is Senior Scientist, Argonne National Laboratory. He is also Member of Editorial Board, Physical Review E, Fellow of Computational Institute, University of Chicago, and Adjunct Professor and member of Graduate School, Northwestern University, Chicago.
 
His research interests include granular systems, soft condensed matter, biohydrodynamics, and superconductivity.
 
Igor coauthored the monograph Granular Patterns, and coauthored over 150 publications in professional journals, including The World of the Complex Ginzburg-Landau Equation, Patterns and collective behavior in granular media: Theoretical concepts, Localized and Cellular Patterns in a Vibrated Granular Layer, Partially fluidized shear granular flows: Continuum theory and MD simulations, Continuum description of avalanches in granular media, Dendritic flux avalanches and nonlocal electrodynamics in thin superconducting films, and Concentration dependence of the collective dynamics of swimming bacteria.
 
Igor earned his B.Sc. in Physics at Gorky State University, Russia in 1981. He earned his M.Sc. (Summa Cum Laude) in Physics at Gorky State University, Russia in 1982. And he earned his Ph.D. in Physics and Nonlinear Dynamics at the Institute of Applied Physics, Academy of Science, Gorky, Russia in 1987. He was awarded Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2002.
 
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