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CEMS > About > Faculty > Kevin Dorfman

Kevin Dorfman

Kevin Dorfman

Information

Associate Professor

Phone: 612-624-5560
Email: dorfman@umn.edu


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Degrees

  • Postdoc, Institut Curie (France), 2002-2005
  • Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering, MIT, 2002
  • M.S. in Chemical Engineering, MIT, 2001
  • B.S. in Chemical Engineering, Penn State University, 1999

Awards

  • Allan P. Colburn Award of the AIChE, 2012
  • Guillermo E. Borja Award, 2012
  • Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, 2010
  • DARPA Young Faculty Award, 2009
  • Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering, 2007
  • NSF CAREER Award, 2007
  • Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation New Faculty Award, 2006
  • Human Frontier Science Program Career Development Award, 2006

Research Areas

My research focuses on understanding the structure and dynamics of polymers, in particular DNA, across a range of length and time scales through a combination of modeling and experiments. On the engineering side, understanding the dynamics of DNA has many important applications in genomics. On the scientific side, DNA serves as a model system for investigating the basic physical properties of semiflexible polymers. My group uses a combination of experimental tools (fluorescence microscopy and nanofabrication), simulations (Brownian dynamics and Monte Carlo) and theory to accurately predict the ensemble-averaged behavior required for specific applications.

Selected Publications

  • Wesley F. Reinhart, Douglas R. Tree and Kevin D. Dorfman, "Entropic depletion of DNA in triangular nanochannels," Biomicrofluidics 7, 024102 (2013).
  • Zhicheng Long, Eileen Nugent, Avelino Javer, Pietro Cicuta, Bianca Sclavi, Marco Cosentino Lagomarsino and Kevin D. Dorfman, "Microfluidic chemostat for measuring single cell dynamics in bacteria," Lab on a Chip 13, 947-954 (2013).
  • Kevin D. Dorfman, "The Fluid Mechanics of Genome Mapping," AIChE Journal 59, 346-354 (2013).
  • Zhen Chen and Kevin D. Dorfman, "Relationship Between Frequency and Deflection Angle in the DNA Prism," Physical Review E 87, 012723 (2013).
  • Sarit Dutta, Kevin D. Dorfman and Satish Kumar, “Adsorption of single polymer molecules in shear flow near a planar wall,” Journal of Chemical Physics 138, 034905 (2013).
  • Daniel W. Olson and Kevin D. Dorfman, "Experimental study of the effect of disorder on DNA dynamics in post arrays during electrophoresis," Physical Review E 86, 041909 (2012).
  • Douglas R. Tree, Yanwei Wang and Kevin D. Dorfman, "Mobility of a semiflexible chain confined in a nanochannel," Physical Review Letters 108, 228105 (2012).
  • Victor H. Barocas, Kevin D. Dorfman and Yoav Segal, "A model of strain-dependent glomerular basement membrane maintenance and its potential ramifications in health and disease," Journal of Biomechanical Engineering 134, 081006 (2012).
  • Vicenzo G. Benza, Bruno Bassetti, Kevin D. Dorfman, Vittore F. Scolari, Krystyna Bromek, Pietro Cicuta and Marco Cosentino Lagomarsino, "Physical descriptions of the bacterial nucleoid at large scales, and their biological implications," Reports on Progress in Physics 175, 076602 (2012).
  • Sung-Gyu Park, Daniel W. Olson and Kevin D. Dorfman, "DNA electrophoresis in a nanofence array," Lab on a Chip 12, 1463-1470 (2012).