New video from #The_Evidence_Says featuring our work on rice-based smart materials. A nice accessible story about everyday grains, unusual mechanics, and adaptive materials. Worth a watch — and do subscribe for more science stories: www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D4f... #SciComm #SmartMaterials

🍂 New paper (JMPS, OA): Midveins control how drying leaves curl/fold. Soft lamina shrinks; stiff vein resists → stress → 3D shapes. Nonlinear, non-Euclidean mechanics—and bioinspiration for morphable materials. 🔗 doi.org/10.1016/j.jm... @unibirmingham.bsky.social #Leaf #Mechanics #Biomimetics

Glad to be part of this exciting project!

🚀 Our tutorial on simulating nonlinear behaviors of flexible structures with the Discrete Differential Geometry (DDG) method is out in Applied Mechanics Reviews (ASME)! 📖 doi.org/10.1115/1.40... 🛠️ Code & demos: www.ddgflexsim.com 📰 UoB news: www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2025/co...

It was a great honour to receive the 𝗙𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗔𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗢𝘂𝘁𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗘𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆-𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗿 𝗔𝗰𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗶𝗰 at the @unibirmingham.bsky.social 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱 𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀’ 𝗔𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘀: birmingham.ac.uk/events/found... Grateful for all the support from everyone!

🚀 New in JMPS! Real-time navigation control of magnetic soft continuum robots (MSCRs) in confined lumens! 🧲🩺 ✅ Hard-magnetic elastic rod + DDG + contact ✅ Real-time inverse design of magnetic fields A step closer to clinical translation! 🔗 doi.org/10.1016/j.jm...

Grateful to have wrapped up an amazing week in Changsha last week — reconnecting with old friends, mentors, and making new ones. Honored to receive the #ICCES_Outstanding_Young_Researcher_Award! Thanks for all the memories and inspiring conversations — onward! 🚀 @unibirmingham.bsky.social

Honoured to be Highly Commended for #Outstanding_Impact_by_an_Early_Career_Researcher at the @unibirmingham.bsky.social Research Impact Awards 2025! Grateful for the support of my collaborators and students. Excited to keep pushing the boundaries of mechanics & robotic metamaterials.

Buckling normally happens when you compress something slender, but 'tug' on a piece of crumpled paper at two points and it also buckles. Read more about how this "localized-TUG folding" occurs in many systems at: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2423439122

Published this week in @pnas.org: A thin sheet folds deeply from a small, localized pull. No patterning, no compression — just geometry. We call it #TUG_Folding — a new instability with α ∝ ε³⁄⁴. 🔗https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2423439122 @mathobservatory.bsky.social @unibirmingham.bsky.social