Prof. Michael F. Thorpe

I carry out research in condensed matter and biological physics. The common themes in this research are disorder and rigidity. Most materials are non-crystalline and the challenge is to develop the mathematical language to describe the disorder, with the aim of better understanding experimental results and opening up new areas of study. The focus of this research is on fundamental properties, but we are very willing to follow up on potential applications.

We have developed the theory of two-magnon scattering in antiferromagnets, and were the first to show that a band gap could exist in non-crystalline materials. We helped establish the theory of excitations in amorphous materials and showed how both the electronic structure and the vibrational properties are dominated by the local chemical bonding. I introduced the concept of "floppy modes' in a 1983 paper that has been cited over 500 times. This work finds applications in amorphous materials and glasses. An important application is to zeolites which contain flexible pores that are used to crack petroleum. We predicted the existence the intermediate phase which is a rigid but unstressed and it has been subsequently discovered in a number of chalcogenide glasses.

I am working on the theory of rigid and floppy regions in proteins and biomolecular complexes using new algorithms from graph theory that we have developed. This allows the flexibility of biomolecules to be determined and the resulting motions studied using new techniques that involve geometric simulation. Proteins have enough rigidity to define their three dimensional structure, while retaining enough flexibility to function.

I have published 257 papers which have been cited 5,892 times with an h-index of 40. An up to date list of publications with hot links is kept at http://biophysics.asu.edu/thorpe/publications.html


Graduate Students

* Elaine Surick Oran - Currently Senior Scientist for Reactive Flow Physics at the Naval Research Labs.
* Hongxing He - Currently Senior Research Scientist at the Australian National University.
* John Marshall Thomsen - Currently Professor of Physics & Astronomy at Eastern Michigan University.
* Edward Joseph Garboczi - Currently Leader of the Inorganic Materials Building Group at NIST.
* Wenqing Tang - Currently at the Jet Propulsion Lab.
* Joel Moritz Gales - Currently at NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center.
* Weizhu Xia - Currently working in Finance on Wall Street.
* Normand Mousseau - Currently an Assistant Professor of Physics at the Universite de Montreal.
* Yong Cai - Currently working in Finance on Wall Street.
* Jidong Chen - Currently at Ford Research Labs.
* Branislav R. Djordjevic - Currently a Software Engineer with Verizon..
* Sangil Hyun - Currently a Research Associate at Johns Hopkins University.
* Mykyta Chubynsky - Currently a research Associate at the University of Montreal.
* Ming Lei - Currently a research Associate at Brandeis University.
* Valentin Levashov - Currently a Research Associate at Oak Ridge National lab.
* A. J. Rader - Currently an Assistant Professor at University of Indiana/Purdue.
* Craig Jolley - Currently a Research Associate at Montana State University
* Scott Menor - Currently Assistant Research Scientist, Engineering Research Center at Arizona State University.
* Dan Farrell - Current Graduate Student.
* Adam Degraff - Current Graduate Student.
* Avishek Kumar - Current Graduate Student.
* Danmei Bian - Current Graduate Student


Research Associates

* Leopold von Heimendahl - Currently Chairman of the Board and CEO of Schott Glas in Mainz, Germany.
* Alison Walker - Currently Senior Lecturer in the Department of Physics at the University of Bath, England.
* Rafael Barrio - Currently Professor of Physics at Universidad Nacional de Mexico.
* Colin Lambert - Currently Professor of Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics at Lancaster University, England.
* Simon de Leeuw - Currently Professor of Physical Simulation at Delft Technological University, Holland.
* Arthur McGurn - Currently Professor of Physics at Western Michigan University.
* Murty Challa - Currently working for a Software Development Company.
* Jean Chung - Currently Chair and Professor of Physics at Chungbuk University, Korea.
* Tuck C. Choy - Currently Professor at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan.
* Anthony Roy Day - Currently Chair and Professor of Physics at John Carroll University.
* Aniket Bhattacharya - Currently Assistant Professor of Physics at Central Florida University.
* Don Jacobs - Currently an Assistant Professor at UNC, Charlotte.
* Adrian Huerta- Currently Research Associate in Guernavaca, Mexico.
* Stephen Wells - Currently at Warwick University as lecturer
* Asel Sartbaeva - Currenly Research Fellow at University of Oxford
* Vitaliy Kapko - Current Research Associate

Honors and Affiliations

Leverhulme Visiting Professor (UK) 2009-2011
General Series Editor, Fundamental Materials Research
[Published annually by Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers 1994 -2002]
Fall 1998 Distinguished University Lecturer, Delft Technical University, Holland.
University Distinguished Professor, Michigan State University, 1997 - 2003.
Fall 1996 Monash Professor, Faculty of Science, Monash University, Australia
Summer 1996 Yamada Foundation Visiting Professor at Osaka University, Japan
D.Sc., Oxford University, 1993
Distinguished Faculty Award, Michigan State University, 1989
1982 Visiting Professor of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
Fellow of American Physical Society
Fellow of the British Institute of Physics


Consultant

AERE, Harwell, England
Armstrong World Industries, Lancaster, Pennsylvania
ATT (Bell Laboratories), Murray Hill, New Jersey
Energy Conversion Devices, Detroit, Michigan
Ford Motor Company, Detroit, Michigan
IBM, Yorktown Heights, New York
ILL, Grenoble, France
NEC Institute, Princeton, New Jersey
NIST, Washington, D.C.
Schlumberger-Doll Research, Ridgefield, Connecticut
Xerox Corporation, Palo Alto, California


Ph.D. Degrees Awarded

1998 Sangil Hyun
A Study of Conductivity in a Complex Geometry
1996 Branislav R. Djordjevic
Properties of Disordered Continuous and Discrete Solids
1994 Jidong Chen
Elastic and Structural Properties of Composite Materials
1993 Normand Mousseau
Structural Properties of Mismatched Alloys
1991 Yong Cai
Topological Rigidity and Structural Study of Disordered System
1989 Joel Moritz Gales
Vibrational Dynamics of Disordered Dipolar and Ionic Solids and Layered Silicates
1988 Weizhu Xia
On the Transport Properties and Dynamics of Disordered Systems
1987 Wenqing Tang
Elastic Behavior of Noncrystalline Networks
1985 Edward Joseph Garboczi
Theory of the Elastic and Vibrational Properties of Central Force Random Networks
1985 Hongxing He
Computer Generated Vitreous Silica Networks and Elastic Properties of Glasses
1984 John Marshall Thomsen
Problems in Ordered and Disordered Ising Systems
1972 Elaine Surick Oran
A Theoretical Study of a spin Hamiltonian with Biquadratic Pair Interactions


Visiting Appointments

Summer 2002 Visiting Professor,University of Paris VI, France.
Fall 1998 Distinguished University Lecturer, Delft Technical University, Holland.
Summer 1997 NATO visitor to University of Lancaster and Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia.
Fall 1996 Monash Professor, Faculty of Science, Monash University, Australia
Summer 1996 Yamada Foundation Visiting Professor at Osaka University, Japan
Summer 1993 Consultant at the NECI Institute, Princeton, New Jersey.
Summer 1992 Consultant at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, (Washington, DC)
1990 - 1995 Visiting Professor, Physics Department, University of Reading, England
1989 - 1990 Sabbatical spent at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, (Washington, DC), Argonne National Laboratory (Chicago) and Ford Motor Company (Detroit).
Spring 1987 NATO visitor to University of Lancaster
Spring 1986 SERC Senior Visiting Fellowship at Imperial College, London
Summer 1984 Visiting Scientist at Schlumberger-Doll Research Center, Ridgefield, Connecticut
1982 - 1983 Sabbatical spent in Oxford and Cambridge Universities
with SERC Senior Visiting Fellowship and Visiting Fellowship at New College, Oxford.
Summer 1982 Visiting Professorship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
Summer 1980 Summer Visitor, Brookhaven National Laboratory
Winter 1979 Visiting Professor at Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil
Summer 1979 Summer Visitor, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
Summer 1978 Scientific Consultant, Institut Laue-Langevin, Grenoble
1978 Senior Visiting Fellowship from SRC. to spend six months at Oxford University
Summer 1977 Consultant at A.E.R.E. Harwell, England
Summer 1976 Summer Visitor, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
Summer 1975 Scientific Consultant, Institut Laue-Langevin, Grenoble
Summer 1974 Summer Faculty Program, IBM Research Labs., Yorktown Heights, New York
1972 - 1973 Junior Faculty Fellowship from Yale University to spend one year at the Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung in Stuttgart.
Summer 1972 Summer Visitor, Brookhaven National Laboratory
Summer 1971 Summer Visitor, University of Stuttgart
Summer 1965 Research Assistant at National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Green Bank, W.Virginia


Named Lectures

Sigma Xi Lecturer at the Naval Research Lab. in Washington, DC, January 2002.
Sigma Xi University Colloquium at University of Cincinnati, April 2002.
Distinguished Colloquium Speaker, Ohio University, November, 1997.
Sherman Fairchild Lecturer at Lehigh University, Fall 1989.

Outreach

I have organized an annual workshop since 1990. These were originally held in Traverse City, Michigan. On moving to Arizona in 2003, these workshops have been held at the Fiesta Inn in Tempe. A list of recent workshops is available at http://biophysics.asu.edu/CBP/workshops.php

I started the distinguished Lecturer series in Physics at ASU in 2003 which brings a distinguished speaker to campus once a year. A list of distinguished lecturers is available at http://physics.asu.edu/distinguished_lect/index.php

I started and run the Biological Physics Seminar at Arizona State university, that brings speakers from around the US to campus. More details can be found at http://biophysics.asu.edu/CBP/seminars.php

I am the Founding Director of the Center for Biological Physics at Arizona State University. For details of the Center and its activities, see http://biophysics.asu.edu/CBP/


Travel Schedule for 2007 (typical year)

* Barbados Workshop "Topics in Computational Geometry" [February 9-16]
* Fourth SIAM Conference on Computational Science & Engineering , Pleanary speaker, Hilton Orange County/Costa Mesa Hotel in Southern California, [February 19-23]
* Colloquium, University of Missouri, Physics, Columbia [April 9]
* Seminar, UCLA, Chemistry [April 23]
* Seminar, Carnegie Mellon, Chemistry [April 26]
* Fifth International Symposium on Theory of Atomic and Molecular Clusters , Richmond, VA. [May 13-17]
* Co-organizer of Conference on Structure and Dynamics in Soft Matter and Macromolecules: from Single Molecules to Ensembles , ICTP, Trieste, Italy. [June 4-8]
* Glasses meet Glasses workshop at CECAM in Lyon, France. [June 13-15]
* Nanoscale order in amorphous and partially ordered solids , Trinity College, Cambridge, [July 9-11]
* ACS National Meeting, "Structural Determination, Refinement, and Modeling of Large Biomolecular Complexes", Boston, MA [ Aug.19-23]
* Workshop on Multiscale Modeling in Biomolecular Systems, Imperial College, London (Centennial Celebrations) on September [12-14].


Teaching - Courses taught since 1995

Spring 1995 PHYS 410 Statistical Physics & Thermodynamics
Fall 1996 PHYS 972D Magnetism
Spring 1996 PHYS 871 Condensed Matter Physics
Fall 1996 On leave
Spring 1997 PHYS 871 Condensed Matter Physics
Fall 1997 PHYS 491 Atomic & Condensed Matter Physics
Spring 1998 PHYS 871 Condensed Matter Physics
Fall 1998 On leave
Spring 1998 PHYS 972D Magnetism
Fall 1999 PHYS 294H Electricity and magnetism
Spring 2000 PHYS 431 Optics
Fall 2000 PHYS 431 Optics + Optics labs.
Fall 2001 PHYS 431 Optics + Optics labs.
Fall 2003 PHY 112 General Physics
Spring 2004 CMH 598 Statistical Mechanics
Fall 2005 HON 194 What is Life
Fall 2006 PHY 112 General Physics
Fall 2007 CHM 545 Statistical Mechanics
Fall 2008 PHY 441 Statistical Physics
Spring 2010 PHY 112 General Physics


External Committees served on since 1995

1995 - 1997 Member of Executive Board; Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter
1995 Member of International Advisory Committee for ETOPIM4 - Electrical Transport and Optical
Properties of Inhomogeneous Materials held in Moscow.
1996 Member site review panel for NSF for the ITP at Santa Barbara.
1996 Co-Director of NATO-ASI on Amorphous Insulators & Semiconductors, Sozopol, Bulgaria and co-editor of the proceedings.
1997 Co-editor of the proceedings and joint organizer of workshop on
Pair Distribution Function Analysis, held in Traverse City, MI.
1998 Co-editor of the proceedings and joint organizer of workshop on
Rigidity Theory and Applications, held in Traverse City, MI.
1999 Member MRSEC site review panel for the NSF.
2000 Co-Director [with Lada Tichy] of NATO-ASI on Properties and Applications of Amorphous Semiconductors, Sec, Czech Republic, and co-editor of the proceedings.
2000 Co-director [with J. C. Phillips] of workshop on Phase Transitions and Self-Organization in Electronic and Molecular Materials, held in Cambridge, UK and co-editor of the associated proceedings.
2000 Co-organizer [with Marcela Beltran] of meeting on Computational Physics held in Cancun.
2000 Co-editor [with Leslie A. Kuhn] of the proceedings and joint organizer of workshop on
Protein Flexibility and Folding, held in Traverse City, MI.
2001 Joint Organizer [with Pantelis Kelires] of CECAM workshop in Lyon on Rigidity and Strain Fields in Crystalline and Amorphous Materials.
2001 Co-editor [with Simon Billinge] of proceedings of the workshop held in Traverse City on Beyond the Average Structure: From Semiconductors to Proteins.
2002 Member site review panel for NSF for the KITP at Santa Barbara.
2003 Member of NSF panel site review of the Center for Theoretical Biological Physics in San Diego.
2004 Co-chair [with Anders Carlsson] of NSF panel on The Role of Theory in Biological Physics and Materials:
A report to the National Science Foundation
2004 Co-organizer [with Walter Whiteley] of workshop held in Banff on Modeling Protein Flexibility and Motions.
2004 Co-organizer [with Simon Billinge] of workshop held in Tempe on the Structure of Nanocrystals.
2005 Co-organizer [with Normand Mousseau] of workshop held in Tempe on Flexibility in Biomolecules.
2006 Co-organizer [with Ileana Streinu] of workshop in Barbados on Topics in Computational Geometry.
2006 Co-organizer [with Walter Whiteley] of workshop held in Tempe on Flexibility, Rigidity and Motion in Biomolecules.
2007 Co-organizer [with Ileana Streinu] of workshop in Barbados on Topics in Computational Geometry.
2007 Co-organizer [with Cristian Micheletti and Hue Sun Chan] of conference in Trieste on Structure and Dynamics in Soft Matter and Macromolecules: from Single Molecules to Ensembles.

Co-founder of MolFlex, a biotechnology software company. Our software in currently used by over 300 groups for which we provide support via Flexweb.asu.edu.

We are currently involved in developing new techniques to analyze flexibility and mobility, that can be applied to many diverse situations, molecular dynamics data for proteins, polystyrene sphere packs, and studies of cell motion during morphogenesis.

Our software is used by many pharmaceutical and biotech companies, particularly for applications involving the search for drug candidates using virtual screeening techniques. All the software avaialble via Flexweb (flexweb.asu.edu) is available for purchase through AZTe at Arizona State University. A new website has come on line (pathways.asu.edu) in 2009 that determines pathways between two known protein conformations.