Physical Learning in Soft & Living Matter: From Loopy Vascular Networks to Continual Learning Machines

by Dr Purba Chatterjee (Univ of Pennsylvania)

Monday 24 Aug 2026, 14:00 → 15:00 Asia/Kolkata

A304 and on Zoom

This talk will explore how learning and adaptation in disordered soft and living materials are shaped by local physical dynamics, constraints, and interacting timescales. First, I will show that the interplay of short-term pulsatility and long-term structural adaptation in periodically driven elastic flow networks — inspired by animal vasculature — is key to stabilizing realistic looped architectures under biologically relevant mechanical and metabolic constraints. Second, I will demonstrate how tunable physical systems can exploit constrained local learning rules to continually acquire new functions while retaining previously learned ones — a hallmark of biological learning. Together, these examples highlight how the emerging framework of physical learning can provide insight into the general principles governing adaptation, memory, and function in complex materials and living systems, while informing the design of novel bio-inspired, energy-efficient adaptive materials.