Daniels completed a bachelor's degree in physics at Dartmouth College in 1994.[1][2] She originally planned to study engineering.[3] After graduating, Daniels spent three years as a physics teacher at Saint Ann's School. Daniels joined Cornell University as a graduate student, earning a PhD in 2002.[1] She was a postdoctoral research associate at Duke University, working on jamming transitions.[1][4] At Duke University, Daniels developed a technique that can make a container of granules arrange into a solid-state crystal (freeze) or into a fluid (melt) by changing the rate at which they are shaken.[5]
Research and career
Daniels joined North Carolina State University as an assistant professor in 2005.[1] She is interested in how materials compress, stretch and bend when a force is applied.[6] She specializes in granular materials and their force chains, and how networks within granular materials control their bulk properties. She developed a way to monitor whether granular materials reach a thermodynamic equilibrium, using plastic granules.[7]
In 2011, Daniels spent a year as an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen,[1][8] coordinating a workshop on complex system's: "Particulate Matter: Does Dimensionality Matter."[9] She worked with Haverford College to study the naturally arising sound waves of granular materials.[10][11] When the materials experience shear stress, the vibrating grains start to stick to the interface. When the stress becomes too much, several grains slip at once, rearranging into new patterns.[12] The stick-slip transition is accompanied by low-frequency vibrational modes.[12] She demonstrated that sound passes through the areas of a material where particles are tightest together.[12] Her lab team have investigated how space missions could explore asteroids.[13] She was supported by NASA to conduct experiments in zero gravity, and took a group of undergraduates to Zero Gravity Corporation.[13] She has also looked at liquid metals, and demonstrated that applying a low voltage to eutectic gallium-indium can cause it to form snowflake-like crystals.[14]
^Zastavker, Yevgeniya V.; Williams, Elvira; Whitten, Barbara; Valentine, Jami; Rudati, Juana I.; Ong, Maria; Michelman-Ribeiro, Ariel; Martínez-Miranda, Luz J.; Kay, Laura (2006-10-17). Women in physics in the U.S.: A progress report. WOMEN IN PHYSICS: 2nd IUPAP International Conference on Women in Physics. Vol. 795. pp. 175–178. doi:10.1063/1.2128320.
