Silke Henkes work focuses on theoretical soft condensed matter physics and biophysics.

More information about Silke Henkes

Silke Henkes began her career with a PhD centered on the statistical mechanics of the granular jamming transition, with Bulbul Chakraborty at Brandeis University. She widened her approach to frictional and thermal systems during her postdoc with Wim van Saarloos at Leiden University, and continues to explore frictional jamming as a rigidity transition. Since 2010, she has focused on the emerging field of active matter, including Active Brownian particles, alignment, and motion on curved surfaces, work she began as a postdoc with Cristina Marchetti at Syracuse University. 

After Lecturer positions at the University of Aberdeen and the University of Bristol, she joined Leiden University in 2022. 
Her current work centers on the mechanics of active and living materials, and in particular on building microscopic models of epithelial cell sheets using particle-based and vertex models.

Read more about Henke's research group on their website. 

Publications