Angel Martinez

Bio

Dr. Angel Martinez is a physicist whose research focuses on light-driven phenomena in soft materials such as polymers, colloids, and liquid crystals. As a Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania, he worked under the mentorship of Dr. Arjun Yodh to explore optical manipulation and self-organization in soft matter systems. His postdoctoral research advanced experimental approaches for controlling topological structures in anisotropic media using light and surface functionalization.

Dr. Martinez earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he investigated the optical control of defect networks and structural dynamics in liquid crystal systems. His dissertation, completed under Dr. Ivan Smalyukh, introduced new methods for 2D and 3D optical imaging of liquid crystal colloids using polarized optical microscopy, multi-photon nonlinear imaging, and holographic particle tracking.

Since completing his fellowship, Dr. Martinez has joined the faculty at Northern Arizona University, where he is now Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Physics and Materials Science. His current research includes simulation of liquid crystal dynamics under external stress, rheological effects of topological defects, and the development of machine learning algorithms to reconstruct 3D soft material structures from 2D optical data. Dr. Martinez continues to bridge physics, materials science, and data-driven modeling in his efforts to better understand and engineer complex soft matter systems.