Professor

Research Interests

Experimental biological physics, high-resolution optical tweezers, molecular motors, nucleic acid and protein translocases

Education

B.S., Yale University (Physics)
Ph.D., 2001, University of California at Berkeley (Physics)
Postdoc., 2001, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, (with Carlos Bustamante), University of California at Berkeley

Awards and Honors

Center for Advanced Study
Sloan Research Fellowship
NSF CAREER Award
Career Awards at the Scientific Interface (CASI), Burroughs-Wellcome Fund

Additional Campus Affiliations

Associate Head, Physics
Professor, Physics

Recent Publications

Ravan, A., Chemla, Y. R., & Gruebele, M. (2025). Larval zebrafish swim bouts in three dimensions reveal both new and redundant behaviours. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 22(229), Article 20250065. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2025.0065

Nguyen, T. V. P., Wu, Y., Yao, T., Trinh, J. T., Zeng, L., Chemla, Y. R., & Golding, I. (2024). Coinfecting phages impede each other's entry into the cell. Current Biology, 34(13), 2841-2853.e18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.05.032

Ravan, A., Procopio, S., Chemla, Y. R., & Gruebele, M. (2024). Temperature-jump microscopy and interaction of Hsp70 heat shock protein with a client protein in vivo. Methods, 231, 154-164. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ymeth.2024.09.019

Bano, R., Mears, P., Golding, I., & Chemla, Y. R. (2023). Flagellar dynamics reveal fluctuations and kinetic limit in the Escherichia coli chemotaxis network. Scientific reports, 13(1), Article 22891. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-49784-w

Bobrovnikov, D., Makurath, M. A., Wolfe, C. H., Chemla, Y. R., & Ha, T. (2023). Helicase Activity Modulation with On-Demand Light-Based Conformational Control. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 145(39), 21253-21262. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.3c05254

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