Adrien Izzet

I am a Soft Matter physicist working at INRAE, the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment. My lab. is located on the AgroParisTech campus, with the SayFood research unit.

My research focuses on the physics of complex matter and especially the relationship between the behavior of one to many particle systems, across the scales. In this scope, I am interested in the link between the mechanical response of macroscopic systems and the behavior and interactions of single particles, which can either be sand-grains, bio-inspired adhesive emulsion droplets, self-propelled droplets, colloids, or biological organisms (swimming micro-algae). To tackle the physics of these systems, I rely on both laboratory and numerical experiments to probe theoretical models.

Before September 2023, I was a postdoctoral researcher at Navier lab. where I studied chemical contact hardening in model cement pastes with experiments on optical tweezers, and in collaboration with Julie Goyon, Xavier Chateau, Anael Lemaitre and Annie Colin. From 2021 to 2022, I was a postdoctoral research associate at ESPCI in Paris, France, within the MIE team (P.I. Annie Colin), at the Center of Chemistry, Biology and Innovation. I am working on relating the inter-particle contact tribology (Tuning-Fork Microscopy) to the rheology of non-Brownian suspensions and on the acoustic lubrication and chemical contact aging in these materials. I am also working on the development of new means to understand the flow physics of living suspensions, namely swimming micro-algae (Chlamydomonas Reinhardtii), in collaboration with Raphaël Jeanneret (LPENS, Paris) and Jérémie Palacci (ISTA, Austria).

Before this, I was a MRSEC postdoctoral research fellow at New York University, at the Center for Soft Matter Research, within the Jamming and Biophysics Lab., where I especially developed an experimental system to generate individual swimming droplets that exhibit strong memory effects in their trajectories due to the repulsion from their excreted trail, leading to non-Markovian random walks (experiments and numerical simulations). At NYU, I have also worked on the properties of protein-induced adhesion in epithelial tissues using a bio-inspired synthetic emulsion designed in the lab.

I have done my PhD within the Physics and Mechanics of Heterogenous Media Lab. at ESPCI (Paris). I was supervised by Eric Clément and Bruno Andreotti. My PhD research focused on the nonlocal rheology of dense granular flows and also on the acoustics in granular matter close to the unjamming transition. During this journey, I have designed and worked on several experiments: parabolic Zero-G flights (experiment of acoustics in weakly confined granular media) and lab. experiments (measurements of non-local effects in granular avalanches). I also run DEM numerical simulations to investigate non-local phenomena in granular flows.

You can follow me on ResearchGate.
I also tweet but not so much.

Beside my lab activities, I like swimming, rock climbing, and back-packing around the world (Indonesia, Mongolia, Rockies in the US, French Pyrenees and Alps…). I am also very into Arts ; I like photography, going to exhibitions and to the theatre.