Devarajan Thirumalai

Devarajan "Dave" Thirumalai earned a B.S. from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Minnesota. Following postdoctoral research at Columbia University, he joined the faculty at the University of Maryland in 1985, where he later became a distinguished university professor and founding director of the biophysics program. Thirumalai joined the chemistry faculty in 2016 and holds the Marvin K. Collie-Welch Regents Chair in Chemistry. His honors include an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, the ACS Theoretical Chemistry Award, the Irving Langmuir Prize, and election as a fellow of the Biophysical Society, the American Physical Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Research in Thirumalai’s group focuses on various problems in equilibrium and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics. Currently, various aspects of the transition from liquid to amorphous state are being investigated. Another area of research involves the theoretical study of polymer-colloid interactions. Research is also being carried out to understand the dynamics of protein folding.