Mainak Sarkar

Mainak Sarkar is a postdoctoral research associate that joined out team at the the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Spring 2024. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he studied the fundamental mechanics of fibrous matrices in tissues. He unraveled novel mappings between the evolving microstructure and the mechanical response of matrices, and these findings provide new directions in understanding mechanical cell-matrix interactions in homeostasis and diseases.

Mainak’s current research aims to characterize the mechanical changes in connective tissues at multiple length scales in hypermobile EDS. He is affiliated with the Carl R Woese Institute for Genomic Biology and co-advised by Professor Christina Laukaitis and Professor Amy Wagoner Johnson.