Dear Colleagues,

Dr. MirFaez Miri has obtained his PhD (jointly from Universite Louis
Pasteur, Strasbourg, France and Institute of Advanced Studies in Basic
Sciences, Zanjan, Iran) last July. He was offered a postdoctoral fellowship
at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, with Prof. Michael Huang. He is
now in Strasbourg in order to write up part of his thesis for publication,
and also, to get his J-1 US visa (for which he had an IAP-66 from NJIT)
from the US Embassy in Paris (there are none in Tehran). Not unexpectedly,
his US visa was denied to him last week, for obvious reasons which had
nothing to do with him or his nationality or his religion.

I am writing to you in the case that you may have a short-time (2-8 month
position, to be filled now or before dec. 1st 2001, or a gap in your
fellowship programme). He is a theoretical physicist, but his first degree
is that of an electrical engineer. He is mostly interested now in polymers,
soft condensed matter, but also in elasticity, topological defects, etc..
He could also perform rapidly in theoretical problems in combinatorial
chemistry, transmission of information, etc.

He has a Shengen visa (EC- Shengen zone) until Dec 10. His subsistance in
Strasbourg is paid for by a grant from the French ministry of Education,
for his co-directed thesis. He has also a job at IASBS (from where he has a
leave of absence Sept 01-Sept 02) awaiting him. So this is not a desperate
situation, by any means. You may, however, have a stop-gap position to fill
for a few months, and he would be a very suitable person for the situation.


You will find below a letter of recommendation written in Jan 2001 (to
which i have nothing to subtract, and a lot to add), a short abstract of
his thesis, and some correspondance with Prof. Huang. Miri's e-mail address
is [log in to unmask], but please send a copy to me
([log in to unmask]), since our e-mail is quite temperamental these
days.

The necessary visa means that this does not apply to labs in the USA. There
may be visa problems with Canada, too. No problems (or at least none that
cannot be sorted out in Strasbourg) for Shengen countries, but neither, I
would think, for any EC country or Switzerland. Faez speaks and understand
English very well. He writes it adequately.

Many thanks for your help. I can, of course, recoommend him very highly to
you (with the qualifications and emphases spelled out in my letter).

Nick Rivier
Professor of Physics
Universite Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg.


 UFR DE SCIENCES PHYSIQUES
        Prof. N. Rivier
Equipe Physique Statistique, LDFC
        3, rue de l'Université                  Strasbourg, 2/1/2001
        67084 STRASBOURG CEDEX


Mir Faez Miri
        Faez Miri has been a PhD student of mine since 1998, under a
co-direction agreement between the Institute of Advanced Studiies in Zanjan
and the University Louis Pasteur. His co-supervisor in Zanjan is Prof. R.
Khajehpour. This co-direction arrangement is funded by a grant of the
French Education Ministry, given to Faez's specific research project.
Admission to the IASBS is highly competitive, and the student is first
required to do a Master with a very high grade, before being allowed to
proceed to a PhD.
        This is simply to explain why you have in Faez Miri one of the best
Iranian student of his year, and probably of the decade. The reverse of
this medal is that Faez studied first Electrical Engineering, like all the
brightest students in Iran. He only started physics and mathematics
seriously, as a subject of investigation rather than as a help, during his
last undergraduate year. So you have a very able, very intelligent student,
highly motivated, and capable to find imaginative and original mathematical
solutions to problems in physics (and, presumably in mathematics), but not
yet mature enough scientifically to define his own problem, and also to get
fired up with his own internal dynamics. If this is sometimes frustrating,
it is only because Faez is good enough to come up with original and
brillant solutions. He will soon be able to define his own research problem
and refine it. And then, he will prove himself as an outstanding physicist
or applied mathematician.
        So, I can recommend him enthusiastically, but only if there is a
set of well-defined, difficult problems awaiting him. Not (yet) if the
field of investigation needs to be defined. He will benefit enormously from
postdoctoral experiences. He certainly must do one or two postdoctoral
fellowships before returning to a teaching position in Iran.
        A few comments on his research work. The asymptotic integrability
of coupled rate equations for random 2D froths is a very nice and
definitive solution to an old problem (scaling state of froths), which had
been exacerbated by the elegant but ad hoc (unphysical?) solutions of
Stavans, Mukamel and Domanyi, and of Flyvbjerg. His other major work has
been on topological defects in continuum elasticity, notably to put
Kroener's extra-matter on the same fundamental footing as torsion
(dislocations) and curvature (disclinations). He succeeded magnificently,
notably in creating the "pure gauge" equivalent for extra-matter (without
disclinations or dislocations), and in making possible a study of the
interaction between dislocations and voids or interstitials, essential in
applied material science.
        I can recommend him very highly, but he is not your standard PhD
student. He is very brillant and able, but this brillance is still a
technical, not yet an intuitive one.
Nicolas Rivier
Professor of Physics, University Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg



Short abstract: MF Miri's PhD thesis

Topological Defects in Elasticity Theory and in Cellular Materials




        We construct a field theory of defects in continuous media,
identifying disclinations, dislocations and extra-matter with their
fundamental tensors, curvature, torsion and nonmetricity. We calculate
explicitely the deformations and the connection (gauge field) in the cases
when there is only extra-matter (the torsion and curvature tensors  are
equal to zero, and the extra-matter tensor is related to Weyl's gauge, a
rod whose length may vary from point to point in the elastic continuum),
and when there is extra-matter and dislocations.
        The second part concerns foams, which are the simplest disordered
materials. In two dimensions, disclinations and dislocations are locally
identified, and there is only one topological random variable, the number s
of sides of a cell. The probability distribution P(s), is universal. After
transients have died off, all foams have a distribution P(s) which decays
exponentially with s for large s, the Boltzmann distribution expected from
maximum entropy arguments.
        The dynamics of 2D foams is written in term of coupled rate
equations, which describe how P(s) is affected by cell disappearance and/or
division. Statistical equilibrium is treated as a local mean field. The
rate equations are then asymptotically integrable and the equilibrium
distribution of cells is essentially unique. Thus, local topological
information explains the evolution and stability of foams.



Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 16:20:51 +0200
Mime-Version: 1.0
To: [log in to unmask]
From: [log in to unmask] (Rivier Nicolas)
Subject: RE: MirFaez Miri/postdoc
Cc: [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask],
        [log in to unmask]
X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by
physique.u-strasbg.fr id QAA18631

Dear Professor Huang,

I am off to Zanjan to-morrow, for the defense of MirFaez Miri's thesis.
The defense will take place on Sat. JULY 14, at 2 pm, in Zanjan. I will fax
you a copy of the decision of the jury (together with the defense report)
as soon as possible afterwards.

Here is the notification of the defense (in French):

Soutenance de thèse (en co-tutelle) LDFC-IASBS


MirFaez MIRI


Topological Defects in Elasticity Theory and in Cellular Materials

Le 14 juillet 2001 à 14h, IASBS, Zanjan, Iran

Jury:


R. Golestanian (IASBS)        Examinateur
R. Khajehpour (IASBS)         Co-directeur de thèse
J.-L. Jacquot (LPT, ULP)         Rapporteur interne
C. Oguey  (Cergy)            Rapporteur externe
N. Rivier (LDFC, ULP)            Co-directeur de thèse
M. Sahimi (USC)            Rapporteur externe
Y. Sobouti (IASBS)           Président


Yours sincerely

Nicolas Rivier


From: "Huang, Michael" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: MirFaez Miri/postdoc
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 16:33:59 -0400
MIME-Version: 1.0

Dear Prof. Rivier:

Thank you very much for taking the effort of sending the fax.  Mr. Miri's
paperwork has been put in and I believe it will go through very soon.  I am
very glad to have him join my group.  Your assistance is deeply appreciated.


Sincerely yours,

Michael Huang

Michael Chien-Yueh Huang
Assistant Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering
New Jersey Institute of Technology
Newark, NJ 07102

973.596.5613 (voice) 973.596.8436 (fax)
[log in to unmask]

ATTENTION; NEW PHONE AND FAX NUMBERS

Nicolas Rivier
LDFC
Universite Louis Pasteur

Institut de Physique
3, rue de l'Universite
F 67084 Strasbourg cedex

Tel (33) 3 90 24 06 51
Fax (33) 3 90 24 07 45 or (33) 3 90 24 06 69

e-mail: [log in to unmask]