physics

Rama Bansil

Rama Bansil is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Rama Bansil rather than just read about it. In short: Rama Bansil serves as Professor of Physics at Boston University, a post she has held since 1997. Although trained as a physicist, her work and professional associations are multi-disciplined, with areas of expertise encompassing biopolymer engineering, polymer engineering, photonics, nanoscience, nanobiotechnology, biophysics and biochemistry.

Key takeaways

Rama Bansil belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Rama Bansil to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Rama Bansil from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Rama Bansil serves as Professor of Physics at Boston University, a post she has held since 1997. Although trained as a physicist, her work and professional associations are multi-disciplined, with areas of expertise encompassing biopolymer engineering, polymer engineering, photonics, nanoscience, nanobiotechnology, biophysics and biochemistry.

Academic biography Dr. Bansil holds a Doctorate in Physics, awarded by the University of Rochester in 1975. This followed the completion of studies at Delhi University, where she earned M.Sc. and B.Sc. degrees. After serving as a research associate at the Harvard-M.I.T. Program in Health Sciences and Technology during the 1975–1976 academic year, she began her teaching career at Boston University in 1976. Since 1997 she has served at that institution as a Professor of Physics with multiple affiliations, including the Center for Polymer Studies, the Photonics Center, the Molecular and Cell Biology and Biochemistry (MCBB) Program, the Center of Nanoscience and Nanobiotechnology, Materials Science and Engineering, and the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at Boston University's School of Medicine. Between 2007 and 2009, on leave of absence from Boston University, she served as the Program Director, Division of Materials Research, Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences, at the National Science Foundation.

Awards and honors Among a small number of women to enter the sciences in the early sixties, Rama Bansil won early distinction, capturing undergraduate prizes in science and winning a Vinton Hayes Fellowship to Harvard University, where she conducted postdoctoral research in 1974–1975. She was later awarded a Bunting Fellowship at Radcliffe College (1993–1994). Dr. Bansil has been a successful applicant for more than a dozen grants from the National Science Foundation and private institutions, with total funding approaching three million dollars. She was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2001.

Research In the course of her scientific career Dr. Bansil has authored or co-authored nearly one hundred publications. The recent focus of her work has been the molecular structure of gels, the physics of gel formation, diffusion in gels and the kinetics of phase transitions and chemical reactions in gels. Her early work, prior to 2000, focused on biophysics, chemical physics, polymer physics (gelation and phase separation). Since 2000, the topics of the biophysics of mucin, and phase transitions and dynamics in block copolymers have occupied her research interests. In her latest work, Dr. Bansil, in collaboration with her former graduate student Jonathan Celli and a team of nine other researchers, has succeeded in explaining the process through which the H. pylori bacterium is able to penetrate the mucous lining of the human stomach, a source of ulcers and even cancer. Those findings could have implications for the prevention and treatment of H. pylori infections. According to Scienceblog: "A team of researchers from Boston University, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently made a discovery that changes a long held paradigm about how bacteria move through soft gels."

References

External links List of Dr. Bansil's publications with short summaries at Scientific Commons

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Rama Bansil

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Rama Bansil claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Rama Bansil before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Rama Bansil ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Rama Bansil

In research: Rama Bansil appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Rama Bansil in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Rama Bansil is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1940s births, 21st-century American academics, 21st-century American women academics, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Rama Bansil outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Rama Bansil in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Rama Bansil means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Rama Bansil out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Rama Bansil in simple terms?

Why does Rama Bansil matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Rama Bansil?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Rama Bansil.