Hemani Chhabra

Hemani Chhabra is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, working within the Aksementiev research group. Her work focuses on computational biophysics and DNA nanotechnology, utilizing atomistic and coarse-grained modeling approaches to investigate nanoscale mechanical properties of DNA structures.

She earned her DPhil from the University of Oxford, where she developed mathematical models to estimate elastic parameters of DNA origamis using the coarse-grained oxDNA simulation framework. Her doctoral research extended into the non-elastic regime of DNA nanotubes, examining structural responses to extreme external twist.

Her core research interests include:

• DNA Nanotechnology and Mechanotechnology
• Computational Modeling of Biomolecules
• Mechanical Properties of Nucleic Acid Nanostructures
• Coarse-Grained Molecular Dynamics (oxDNA)
• Nanoscale Force Generation in DNA Systems

Dr. Chhabra's current research explores biophysics from atomistic perspectives within the Aksementiev group. No scientific awards, student advisement records, or research grants are documented in the provided text.