MARIA TATULEA-CODREAN
ELS KOFFEMAN FELLOW IN BIOLOGICAL PHYSICS
As an applied mathematician, I develop mechanistic models to explain and predict a variety of dynamical behaviours in both living and artificial systems. My current research focuses on the themes of flows (flows around and between filaments, flows in membranes), motors (especially bacterial flagellar motors) and oscillators (synchronization of hydrodynamically coupled oscillators). Previously, I focused on modelling the coupled hydrodynamics of bacterial flagella, a topic that remains close to my heart. My work is highly interdisciplinary, combining methods from fluid mechanics, biological physics, asymptotic analysis, and dynamical systems. I especially enjoy collaborating with experimentalists and designing macroscopic scale experiments that bring the physics of microorganisms to life.
Since July 2025, I am the Els Koffeman Postdoctoral Fellow in the Soft Matter Group at the Institute of Physics, University of Amsterdam. Previously, I held the Lynden-Bell Research Fellowship in Mathematics at Clare College, Cambridge. Before that, I was a postdoctoral research associate of Prof Jean-Francois Joanny at the Collège de France in Paris and carried out my doctoral studies in Prof Eric Lauga's group at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge. My doctoral work involved the use of mathematical modelling and numerical simulations to study the swimming of multi-flagellated bacteria such as the model organism Escherichia coli.
