I am a Full Professor of Biological Physics and currently, I also act as Associate Head of the Physics Department (for People). I am also the proud, and busy, mother of two children. I studied and worked in Madrid, Moscow, Prague, Beijing, Osaka and Aarhus before moving to Oxford.
I work on physics at the interface of biology, nanotechnology, and information processing. I am an expert in atomic force microscopy of biological systems and have a special interest in the role of mechanics in biology.
My interest in matter at the nanometre scale led me from a PhD at Osaka University (Japan) on the physics of nanostructures, to biology. My multidisciplinary journey is a quest to interrogate how matter entangles itself with its environment, storing information in time and space, to create (and sometimes to compute) complex structures (from the nanometre scale up) that are able to adapt, learn, reproduce and evolve to become “alive”. My main interest is understanding the profound physical meaning of “biological shape”, so I study the physics of “biological growth and shape” in diverse systems such as plants, neural networks and tumours.
I am a believer in “learning by making”, collaborating, creating technology, engaging with the public. By doing so I find interesting problems, but more fundamentally I strive to weave responsibility in my science, so my work can contribute to progress in a meaningful, ethical, and fairer way.
Currently, we study how neurons couple electricity, mechanics and chemistry to communicate, and on the non-equilibrium thermodynamic processes that underpin their function. We also collaborate with neuroscientists to make brain interfaces that allow more sophisticated measurements of neurons in the brain, some of these are based on a new way to produce surface acoustic waves developed in our lab.
I am funded by the John Fell Fund to make "Brain waves in a chip" using our new patented technology to make neuron chips that oscillate at gamma wave frequencies. I am a collaborator of the project Schrödinger's Bacteria: An Integrated Experimental and Theoretical Approach to Quantum Entanglement led by Prof Tristan Farrow and funded by the Moore Foundation. I also collaborate with the Cambridge start-up Maxapiens which uses molecular motions at the quantum-classical interface for computing.
One of the most exciting projects of my lab is to apply biological physics principles and AI to transform how zero-emission buildings are designed, as a partner of ZEBAI a major new initiative, backed by 3.8 million Euros of funding from the European Commission Horizon Programme, which will establish demonstrator projects in four countries (including Ukraine) to test innovative approaches to significantly reduce the carbon footprint of buildings. We talk here about it. I am also part of the UKRI funded project BuildAir: a holistic framework to design safe built environments.
Currently, I collaborate with Amanda Levete Architects to create bioinspired, sustainable “smart” materials based on wood and plants, which might be able to substitute steel in the future. I was invited by Amanda Levete to discuss our project in "Glass House Presents", it can be watched here.
I am also a member of the EU-funded PETAL project which seeks to deploy portable PET scanners to study plant metabolism as they grow in the wild.
I am interested in innovation and how we can improve the way academic knowledge can make an impact in the real world; I collaborate with several initiatives, including "Creative Destruction lab" . I am also a member of the "Everyday Creativity Network" which seeks to democratise the sciences and the arts with a focus on the "every day".
As a woman "misfit" in Physics, I study and think a lot about the relationship of physics with power, imperialism/nationalism, politics and social identities in the XIX, XX and XXI centuries, and I am starting to write and speak about it. I have been an invited lecturer at the Nissan Centre of Japanese Studies at Oxford, and the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago (CEAS) to talk about the history of Japanese Physics, and I delivered the Aarhus Humanities and Sciences Lecture 2024. I am a member of the Århus Unearthing Multispecies Intellectual History Group.
I have also become a columnist for the Spanish newspaper El Pais, here are some of my pieces: "Japón, Taiwán y China: una lección democrática de los chips" (Japan, Taiwan and China: a democratic lesson from microchips) and "China, Ucrania y el litio: ¿podremos reducir las emisiones de CO₂ usando vehículos eléctricos?" (China, Ukraine and lithium: will we be able to reduce CO2 emissions using electrical vehicles?) and "Los límites de la computación digital y los chips neuromórficos" (the limits of digital computing and neuromorphic chips)
I am the author of the book "Nano comes to life: How nanotechnology is transforming medicine and the future of biology" Published by Princeton University Press as hardback in 2019 and as a paperback in 2021. The Chinese language translation entitled《纳米与生命》 was published by 中信出版集团 Citic Press, and the Japanese translation by Newton Press. It was published in Spanish in 2023 by ARPA Editores as "Nanotecnologia viva".
The book was reviewed by Barbara Kiser in Nature here: "[A] succinct study . . . Contera frames this near-future transmaterial science, with its focus on human well-being, as an effort allied to social justice even as it probes existential questions of what it means to be human."
- "I, nanorobot" is a one-page review of "Nano comes to life" by Christine Horejs in Nature Physics.
The Harvard Business Review - "Exponential ViewYouTube" interviewed me to discuss the book in the podcast "The state of nanotechnology".
I also discussed the book with Kirsty Wark and other guests in BBC Radio 4 "Start of the Week" which you can listen to here: "Numbers, nightmares and nanotech".
The Royal Institution of Great Britain invited me to present the book in one of their evening lectures (fulfilling a childhood dream); you can watch my talk in this video on YouTube "The issues we face at the nanoscale".
The Chinese edition 《纳米与生命》has been reviewed by the Chinese Government's Popular Science Times herelistened-to, the national newspaper Beijing News-新京报 here, and the popular news outlet 澎湃新闻 "THE PAPER" here.
The Spanish edition of the book was reviewed by El Pais, El Confidencial, El Mundo, El Español, the prestigious literary magazine El Boomeran(g), and others, and was the focus of discussion of the most listened-to Spanish radio programme "A vivir".
I am working on a new book for ARPA ... out in 2025, I hope.
New video (April 2022): "It from bit? The future of bioinspired computing beyond Machine learning"