Hello and welcome to my site!

My name is Richard Henshaw, an experimental biophysicist focusing in microfluidics, biophysics and soft matter.  I am a senior postdoctoral research with Prof. Roman Stocker at ETH Zurich, studying marine chemotaxis and the interactions it drives between members of the marine microbial community.

My research focusses on linking the microscopic biological properties to macroscopic physical processes that drive transport and interactions between organisms and their environment. Specifically, I have studied the directed motion (i.e. chemotaxis, phototaxis, magnetotaxis) of swimming organisms, the formation of structures and transport driven by flows of cells and the development of novel microfluidic, experimental and numerical tools to further probe these fundamental topics.

Prior to my current position, I was a postdoctoral scholar with Prof. Jeffrey Guasto at Tufts University (Boston, USA) for three years. During this time, I worked on a range of topics from the effect of pre-lysis viral infection on bacterial chemotaxis, the transport and Lagrangian structures of active turbulence, and applying modal techniques to study biologically-generated flow fields to better understand the structure and transport of such systems.

My PhD focused on cell responses to external stimuli, primarily light-induced, of green algae (specifically Micromonas pusilla and Chlamydomonas reinhardtii).   This was supervised by Dr. Marco Polin at the University of Warwick, where I also completed my undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Physics (MMathPhys BSc).  Outside of academia I am a keen saxophonist and cyclist/triathlete on the rare occasions I misplace the bike and end up in a swimming pool!

I am always open to discussions and collaborations so if you want to get in touch please see the “Contact Me” page or you can message me on my LinkedIn page!

Richard Henshaw, PhD