Ivan Saika-Voivod

Assistant Professor

Department of Physics and Physical Oceanography

Memorial University of Newfoundland

St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada, A1B 3X7

Room 1059, Chemistry and Physics Building

Telephone: (709) 864-8886

Fax: (709) 864-8739

saika@mun.ca

Brief CV

Assistant Professor, Memorial University of Newfoundland, (2006-present)

Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Saskatchewan, with Richard K. Bowles (2004-2006)

Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Rome La Spaienza, with Francesco Sciortino (2003-2004)

Ph.D. Applied Mathematics - Theoretical Physics, University of Western Ontario, with Peter H. Poole (2002)

Collaborators

Valerie Booth: peptides and lipids

Richard K. Bowles nucleation

Qiying Chen: organic solar cells

Kristin Poduska: biomaterials

Peter H. Poole : liquids, glassy dynamics and nucleation

Francesco Sciortino: liquids and colloids

Anand Yethiraj: colloids in electric fields

Emanuela Zaccarelli: colloidal gelation

Courses

Research

Publications

Research Perspective

glass-forming properties of silica and other liquids
glassy aging
crystal nucleation
thermodynamics of clusters
colloidal gelation
phase behaviour (calculating phase diagrams)
dynamical properties of liquids

People

Current

Ahmad Almudallal

PhD candidate (Jan. 2010 - present) Phase behaviour of anomalous liquids
MSc (Jan. 2008 - Jan. 2010): Simulation study of a colloidal system under the influence of an external electric field.
• Talk: Simulation study of a colloidal system under the influence of an external electric field, CAP Congress, Jun 7-10, University of Moncton, Moncton, New Brunswick, 2009

Mohammad Khatami

PhD candidate (joint with V. Booth, Jan. 2012 - present) Simulation of antimicrobial peptides and lipid bilayers

Brendan Cooke

Undergraduate Research Assistant: Simulation of primitive silica models

Past

Kathryn Manning (joint with Luc Beaulieu)

summer research and Honours (May 2010 - Aug. 2011): Modeling the motion of viruses in microcantilever sensor cells with different geometries in order to optimize detection efficiency.

Dr. Marek Bromberek (joint with A. Yethiraj)

Postdoctoral Fellow (Sep 2009 - Aug. 2011): MD simulation of sedimenting colloids; simulation of peptides in lipid bylayers.

Yanfei Ding (joint with Q. Chen)

MSc (Sept. 2007 - Dec. 2009): Organic bulk heterojunction solar cells with improved efficiency

Joshua Turner

Research assistant and honours thesis (May 2008 - Aug 2009): Local order in the Kob-Anderson Lennard-Jones binary mixture.

Greg Morrow

Research assistant and honours thesis (May 2008 - Aug 2009): Test of mean-first-passage-time formalism and CNT on freezing Lennard-Jones clusters
• Talk: Molecular Dynamics Simulations: Investigating Nucleation in Liquid Clusters, APICS Undergraduate Physics and Astronomy Conference (AUPAC), Feb 6th-8th, Fredericton, New Brunswick (2009).
• NSERC Representatives' Undergraduate Student Awards; 2nd Place for Best Talk (awarded at AUPAC, University of New Brunswick, 2009).
• ACEnet Institute for Materials Modeling and Simulation Award in Computational Modeling of Materials (awarded at AUPAC, University of New Brunswick, 2009)

Dr. Manuel Valera (joint with A. Yethiraj)

Postdoctoral Fellow (Jan. 2008 - Aug. 2008): MD simulation of sedimenting colloids.
Now a faculty member at Slippery Rock University

Sarah Graham

Research assistant and honours thesis (May 2007 - Aug. 2008): Test of mean-first-passage-time formalism and CNT on crystal nucleation in Lennard-Jones liquid.
• Test of classical nucleation theory and mean first-passage time formalism on crystallization in the Lennard-Jones liquid, J. Chem. Phys. 131, 104503 (2009)
• talk: Test of a new method to analyze simulations of nucleation and crystal growth. Atlantic Undergraduate Physics and Astronomy Conference, Feb 2008, Charlottetown, PEI.

Joe Fitzgerald

Research assistant (July 2008 - Aug. 2008): Extension of the EMLD-DNT formalism to crystal nucleation

Kevin Stirling

Research assistant (May 2007 - Aug. 2007): MD simulation of hydroxyapatite.
Honours Thesis student (Sept. 2008 - Dec. 2008 - unfinished)

Heather King

MSc candidate (Sept. 2008 - Apr. 2009) -unfinished, transferred to Geophysics
Research assistant (May 2007-July 2008): MD Simulation of a model colloidal gel-forming system, comparison with models for silica.

Silica is a major component of the earth's crust and mantle. Sand is a form of silica. The tetrahedral structure of silica makes it analogous in some ways to water. The two often combine in pleasant ways, as illustrated below. If you know the name of the painting below, or the name of the painter, please let me know! As an undergraduate years ago, I downloaded the image from a site in St. Petersburg, and I don't have any information about it.