Gautam I Menon

About

I am a professor at Ashoka University in Sonepat, India as well as, until 2023, at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Chennai, India. I worked for many years in the applications of statistical mechanics to problems in three main areas: type-II superconductivity, soft matter physics and biophysics. A specific interest over the past decade is the biophysics of chromatin, and how active matter approach, inspired by recent developments in soft matter and statistical physics, can help us understand and model many apparently unrelated experimental observations of large-scale nuclear architecture. In the past I ahe worked on a number of problems in type-II superconductivity (flux-lattice melting, muon-spin rotation, peak effect, vortex glasses, universal phase diagrams of vortex matter, disordered fluids, reentrant melting, surface melting).

More recently, I have begun to work in problems in epidemiology, as well as the intersection of disease, climate change and ethics. I have always been interested in science outreach: I have organized many meetings in this regard, including the flagship Science at the Sabha in Chennai, written extensively for the general public on topics at the interface of science and society, have appeared many times on TV and have been quoted across multiple other media, both nationally and internationally. A short video clip featuring my COVID-19 recommendations, made for the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, has been viewed close to a million times.

Employment

• Ashoka University Professor
  2019 - Present
• The Institute of Mathematical Sciences Professor and Dean (Computational Biology)
  2016 - 2024
• Simon Fraser University Postdoctoral Fellow and Sessional Instructor
  1996 - 1998

Education

Education history is unavailable.

Projects & Funding

Projects & funding information is unavailable.

Publications (74)

• Climate change and health in South Asia: A systematic mapping
  The Journal of Climate Change and Health 2026 DOI: 10.1016/j.joclim.2025.100645
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• Simulating a potential mpox outbreak: Implications for control in non-endemic settings
  PLOS Global Public Health 2026 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0006630
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• The Lancet Commission on a citizen-centred health system for India
  The Lancet 2026 DOI: 10.1016/s0140-6736(25)02169-5
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• Global health data precarity: Safeguarding the Demographic and Health Survey program as a global public good
  Scientific Data 2025 DOI: 10.1038/s41597-025-06128-9
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• Modelling a potential zoonotic spillover event of H5N1 influenza
  BMC Public Health 2025 DOI: 10.1186/s12889-025-25358-5
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• Forces at the scale of the cell
  2025 DOI: 10.48550/ARXIV.2512.08311
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• BharatSim: An agent-based modelling framework for India
  PLOS Computational Biology 2024 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1012682
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• Accurate birth weight prediction from fetal biometry using the Gompertz model
  European Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Reproductive Biology: X 2024 DOI: 10.1016/j.eurox.2024.100344
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• Seasonal variations in social contact patterns in a rural population in north India: Implications for pandemic control
  PLOS ONE 2024 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0296483
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• Transport of synaptic vesicles is modulated by vesicular reversals and stationary cargo clusters
  Journal of Cell Science 2023 DOI: 10.1242/jcs.261223
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