Babak Vajdi Hokmabad was a postdoctoral researcher in the lab. He studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Tabriz, Iran (undergraduate), and the University of Alberta, Canada (Master of Science), before obtaining his Ph.D. in Physics at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Germany. During his Ph.D., he worked on active soft matter, in particular, hydrodynamics and the collective behavior of chemically active droplets. In the lab, he studied the collective dynamics of bacteria in complex environments. Babak was one of the “transition team” who helped moved our lab from Princeton to Caltech, and then returned to Princeton as an associate research scholar.

Outside the lab, Babak likes hiking, traveling, and watching movies and TV. He also loves watching (and sometimes playing) soccer; he might have some controversial opinions about it too.