Heinrich M. Jaeger

Professor Heinrich M. Jaeger is the Sewell Avery Distinguished Service Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago. Jaeger has uncovered the principles that govern the far-from-equilibrium behavior of density relaxation, flow and avalanches, convection, pattern formation and force distributions in those materials. He was one of the first to use NMR imaging and X-ray tomography to uncover the microscopic structure and behavior of soft-matter systems and to use these techniques to obtain quantitative comparison with theoretical predictions. He used granular matter as the working component of soft-robotic grippers and joints based on the concept of jamming. He demonstrated the characteristics of jamming fronts as loose material is compressed. His recent work is on the importance of boundaries for the shear thickening of dense suspensions. His work on nano-particle sheets has demonstrated the exceeding strength that these materials can display.