Dinner group
- Email:
- mvarma@uchicago.edu
- Website:
- https://dinner-group.uchicago.edu/
Background
Malavika Varma joined James Franck Institute in August 2025 as a postdoctoral scholar in the group of Prof. Aaron Dinner. She received her BS-MS in Physical Sciences from IISER-Kolkata, where she investigated the gravitational perturbations of the Kerr spacetime. Malavika received her PhD in May 2025 from the Department of Physics at Carnegie Mellon University under the supervision of Prof. Markus Deserno. Her doctoral work focused on cholesterol distribution and raft-like phase behavior in asymmetric lipid membranes, using coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations and thermodynamic modeling. As a member of the Dinner group at UChicago, she is interested in studying mechanosensing in cellular systems like the inner ear, where ion channels respond to both mechanical deflection and electrical feedback.