M. Lisa Manning, associate professor in the Physics department has recently been named a 2016 Simons Investigator.

The award, bestowed by the Simons Foundation, comes with a 5-year, $500,000 grant that is designed to support cutting edge research by outstanding scientists from around the world. The program emboldens work on high risk, high reward projects that have the potential to shift the paradigm of each researcher’s field of study.

Manning, whose work focuses on understanding the dynamics of non-equilibrium materials and the mechanical properties of biological cell interactions, joined the Syracuse physics faculty in 2011.

One of the areas of study the Manning Group is currently exploring through the grant is how cancer cells move out of a tumor to become metastatic throughout a patient’s body.

“So much of cancer is mechanical. In other words, cancer cells change their mechanical properties in very interesting ways,“ says Manning.  “When you combine the best of the knowledge of biologists, with the tools physicists to understand how cells behave mechanically, and how they can exit a tumor, that becomes really powerful.“

In the video below, Manning discusses more about her current work and the impact her recent award will have on the research being done at Syracuse University.