During his time as a doctoral student, Ray Adkins worked as a graduate researcher in the Dogic Lab, studying the field of physics known as active matter. At the lab led by Professor Zvonimir Dogic, Adkins contributed to research that has brought new light to the rules and laws that govern how materials “self-organize.” Now, as Adkins prepares to walk at UCSB’s Commencement to receive his PhD in physics, he is also preparing to set off to Yale University this fall, where he’ll be applying the systems of physical modeling that he learned as a graduate researcher to neuroscience with a prestigious Schmidt Science Fellowship for postdoctoral research. 

Working with active materials — which are constantly in motion — Adkins looks at how interactions within materials create order, and how this motion causes material properties to emerge on a large scale. Researchers reconstitute cell proteins, building systems from the bottom up to study their behavior.