About me

I am a quantitative biologist (or more accurately, I am what happens when someone gets trained in physics but makes too many friends in the biology department :)). I am broadly interested in complex biological systems where non-linear coupling, either across scales or between system components, leads to new emergent behavior. I have studied a wide range of such systems: I started out developing stochastic differential equation models to study collective movement in fish schools, then I moved onto using wet lab experiments, microscopy and non-linear elasticity models to study non-linear tissue mechanics and tissue regeneration in Hydra and in freshwater flatworms and now, I use non-linear ODE models to study the ecology and evolution of temperate viruses that infect bacteria. Despite the diversity of biological systems, the range of time and length scales involved and the different techniques, in all systems, we see emergence of complex behavior from relatively simple underlying rules.

I am also really interested in (bio)physics education. As a Summer Graduate Teaching Scholar in the summer of 2021 at UCSD, I was the instructor-of-record for PHYS 1B: Electricity and Magnetism for life science majors. I also helped develop a module to teach object tracking and basic signal processing to pre-major undergraduates at Swarthmore College. You can find the associated manuscript here.

I am currently a postdoctoral scientist at the University of Maryland College Park in the Weitz Group. Before joining the Weitz group, I was a PhD student at the University of California San Diego working with Dr. Eva-Maria Collins (now at Swarthmore college) and Dr. Patrick Diamond. I completed my undergraduate degree in Physics with a minor in biology from the Indian Institute of Science and did my undergraduate thesis work under the supervision of Dr. Vishwesha Guttal.

You can find out more about my work under the research tab. You can also reach me by email at tgoel36@umd.edu.