Laboratory for Statistical Physics and Collective Phenomena Faculty Members

[ Para un recorrido en español presione aquí ]. Our faculty members come from three major institutions in Venezuela and they are:

Mariela Araujo Fresky received her Bachelor Degree in Physics from Universidad Central de Venezuela in 1986 with honors and she earned her Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Physics at Boston University in 1993. In 1986 Dr. Araujo joined INTEVEP S.A. (Research and Development Division of Petróleos de Venezuela S.A.) and she became part of a strategic training program of the company before her departure for a graduate education. Dr. Araujo began her doctoral program in 1989 and she worked in research problemas related to theoretical statistical mechanics and critical phenomena under the guidance of Prof. H. Eugene Stanley. Since 1990 Dr. Araujo is a current member of the American Physical Society. Upon graduation she became associate researcher of the rock physics group at the Reservoir Department of INTEVEP S.A. and joined the Physics Department Faculty at the School of Physics and Mathematics of the Universidad Central de Venezuela. In 1996 she became a founder member of the Laboratory for Statistical Physics and Collective Phenomena.

           Dr. Araujo is currently interested in transport phenomena in disordered media at different scales, chemical reactions and their kinetics. She is presently devoted to the study of diffusion mechanisms in disodered media, anomalous diffusion and random walks in regular and fractal lattices, fluid-rock interactions and multiphasic flow, transport phenomena in porous media and random matrices as a tool in order to study the transport properties of mesoscopic media and their effects in the macroscopic disorder of physical systems.

Ernesto Medina Dagger received his Bachelor Degree in Physics from Universidad Central de Venezuela in 1985 with honors and earned his Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1991. In 1985 he joined INTEVEP S.A. (Research and Development Division of Petróleos de Venezuela S.A.) and at the same time he was part of a stratetic training program of the company. In 1986 he began his graduate studies at the Massachusetts Instuitute of Technology, where he worked under the guidance of Prof. Mehran Kardar in theoretical statistical mechanics and critical phenomena. Since 1988 Dr. Medina is a current member of the American Physical Society. After graduation Dr. Medina became associate researcher of the oriented basic research group of INTEVEP S.A. and in 1996 he moved to the rock physics group at the Reservoir Department within the same company. In 1995 Dr. Medina was distinguished with the Polar Prize, awarded by the Mendoza Fleury Foundation, for his performance as young researcher. In 1997 Dr. Medina left INTEVEP S.A. and he took a position as associate researcher at the Centro de Física of the Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas. In the very same year he joined the Laboratory for Statistical Physics and Collective Phenomena and the Physics Department Faculty at the School of Physics and Mathematics of Universidad Central de Venezuela.

           Dr. Medina has a general interest in the physics of disordered media and the transport and critical phenomena related to it. He is presently devoted to the physics of disordered media at mesoscopic scales, particularly the study of interfacial phenomena related to colloids and dispersions, their stability problems and the reology of emulsions. Also he is interested in the application of random matrices to the study of transport properties of mesoscopic media and he is also engaged in the study of the properties of continuum in systems with several degrees of freedom.

Rafael Martín Landrove received his Bachelor Degree in Physics from Universidad Central de Venezuela in 1975 and a Master Degree from Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas in 1978 with honors. In his masters program Dr. Martín worked in research problems related to neutron physics and neutron diffraction techniques applied to solid state physics under the guidance of Prof. Lubomir David and Prof. Rodrigo Medina. At that time Dr. Martín joined the Physics Department Faculty at the School of Physics and Mathematics of the Universidad Central de Venezuela for a couple of years and then he left to begin his doctoral program. Since 1978 he is a current member of the American Physical Society. In 1984 Dr. Martín received a Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in his doctoral program he worked in theoretical nuclear physics and pion physics under the guidance of Prof. Ernest J. Moniz at the Center for Theoretical Physics of the Laboratory for Nuclear Science. At the end of his graduate studies he received a special award from that institution and after graduation he rejoined the Physics Department Faculty at the School of Physics and Mathematics of the Universidad Central de Venezuela. Since 1987 he is a current member of the Centro de Resonancia Magnética at the same university. In 1996 he became a founder member of the Laboratory for Statistical Physics and Collective Phenomena.

           Dr. Martín has a wide range of interests in physics and related cross-disciplinary subjects. He is presently devoted to the physics of collective and interfacial phenomena related to colloids and dispersions and their stability problems, as well as their transport in confined geometry media. He has special interest in the study of reology of emulsions and mainly in the behavior of dinamical interfacial tension and viscosity and the effective interaction theories at mesoscopic scales that should be developed in order to handle them, as well as experimental and computational techniques for their measurement or simulation and their applications to the oil industry and medicine. By analogy this very same mesoscopic approach is also used in the study of cellular cooperative phenomena in immunology and tumor, normal tissue and bacteria growth. Also by analogy in very heavy nuclear systems there is a possibility for the study of transport properties and critical phenomena. At subnuclar level there is a challenge in the study of proton structure by analogy to interfacial and critical phenomena at bigger scales. Dr. Martín is also concentrated in the development of new tools for the solution of inverse problems in medical physics for diagnosis and therapy (radiation transport phenomena in different kinds of media), geophysics, material science, many-body and nuclear physics. In geophysics there is special interest in the development of methods for the direct and true solution of inverse problems related to electromagnetic probes avoiding the use of any a priori geological model. In material science the combination of gauge, elasticity and defect theories applied to the study of fracture and deformation of material media is also considered within the same approach. In nuclear physics the same tool is used in the study of the information related to the continuum for few body systems, particularly helium isotopes.