Mohan Shankar

B.Sc. Chemistry, University of Virginia, 2024

“Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn’t matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.”

- Richard P. Feynman

About Me:

Hello there! As the site title shows, my name is Mohan. I’m currently a senior at the University of Virginia, and I study chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences. In particular, I find myself at the intersection of math, chemistry, and physics as my main interests lie in the realm of Quantum Mechanics (QM) and Statistical Mechanics (SM). To talk a bit about them, I use QM to work towards a more holistic understanding of transition state theory (TST). In the realm of SM, I use LAMMPS to model a specific inter-atomic potential that governs dynamics at varying length scales. If those words mean nothing to you, I’d be incredibly happy to discuss them further.

Outside of ‘pure’ academia, I enjoy reading fiction and textbooks— two very different things I’m aware. Both are in line with being a nerd, so I’m self-consistent in that regard. Besides this, I like thinking about communication and pedagogy since I believe “communication is civilization.” As such, I think that knowledge is somewhat useless if they can’t be accurately and correctly communicated to others. My main, final interest that is least readily mapped back to academia is playing the guitar. It’s fun to make things that sound nice, and there’s a lot to unpack about music theory and the physics/biology of sound.

Research Interests:

• Quantum Mechanics
• Statistical Mechanics
• Soft Matter (particularly polymers)