I’m interested in understanding how living things utilize physical principles to develop and proliferate. In pursuit of these ends, I study the cellular shape change that results from interactions occurring at the molecular level amongst cytoskeletal proteins. Forces generated by interactions amongst cytoskeletal proteins set the macroscopic properties of cytoskeletal structures, like actomyosin rings and the mitotic spindle, that in combination with external forces (outside the structure) set its form. Together the forces within a structure and the form it takes results in its function (shape change). My goal is to better understand the force-form-function connection of cytoskeletal structures, specifically, microtubule bundle containing structures like the fission yeast mitotic spindle.