Professor Pelcovits joined the Brown Physics Department in 1979. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, he received his Ph. D. from Harvard University in 1978. He has done postdoctoral research at the University of Illinois and Brookhaven National Laboratory. He was an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow and a recipient of the Bergmann Memorial Award from the U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation. He has been a visiting professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Tel Aviv University and Brandeis University.

Theoretical liquid crystal physics, including large-scale simulations on parallel machines and scientific visualization.  Animations of some of our simulation work are available here.

"Nematic cells with defect-patterned alignment layers", (with A. S. Backer and A. C. Callan-Jones), Phys. Rev. E 77, 021701 (2008).

"Vesicle shape, molecular tilt, and the suppression of necks," (with H. Jiang, G. Huber and T. R. Powers), Phys. Rev. E. 76, 031908 (2007).

"Dynamics of the molecular orientation field coupled to ions in two-dimensional liquid crystals," (with J-B. Lee and R. B. Meyer), Phys. Rev. E 76, 021704 (2007).

"Role of electrostatics in the texture of islands in free-standing ferroelectric liquid crystal films," (with J-B. Lee and R. B. Meyer), Phys. Rev. E 75, 051701 (2007).

"Untwisting of a strained cholesteric elastomer by disclination loop nucleation," (with A. Callan-Jones, R. B. Meyer, and A. F. Bower), Phys. Rev. E. 75, 011701 (2007).

"Simulation and visualization of topological defects in nematic liquid crystals," (with A. Callan-Jones, G. B. Loriot, V. Slavin, S. Zhang, and D. H. Laidlaw), Phys. Rev. E. 74, 061701 (2006).

"Stable polarization gratings recorded in azo-dye-doped liquid crystals," (with S. P. Gorkhali, S. G. Cloutier, and G. P. Crawford), Appl. Phys. Lett. 88, 251113 (2006).

"Liquid-crystal diffraction gratings using polarization holography alignment techniques," (with G. P. Crawford, J. N. Eakin, M. D. Radcliffe and A. Callan-Jones), J. Appl. Phys. 98, 123102 (2005)

 “Visualization of Topological Defects in Nematic Liquid Crystals Using Streamtubes, Streamsurfaces and Ellipsoids,” (with V. A. Slavin, S. Zhang, D. Laidlaw, G. Loriot and A. Callan-Jones), VIS '04: Proceedings of the conference on Visualization '04, p. 598.21 (2004).

“Liquid crystals in random porous media:  Disorder is stronger in low-density aerosols,” (with D. E. Feldman), Phys. Rev. E (RC) 70, 040702 (2004).

"Zero voltage Freedericksz transition in periodically aligned liquid crystals" (with J. N. Eakin, Y. Xie, M. D. Radcliffe, and G. P. Crawford), Appl. Phys. Lett. 85, 1671 (2004)

"External and intrinsic anchoring in nematic liquid crystals: A Monte Carlo study"  (with N. V. Priezjev, G. Skacej and S. Zumer), Phys. Rev. E. 68, 041709 (2003).

“Optomechanical Properties of Stretched Polymer Dispersed Liquid Crystal Films for Scattering Polarizer Applications” (with I. Amimori, N. V. Priezjev and G. P. Crawford),  J. Appl. Phys. 93, 3248 (2003).

"Virtual surfaces, director domains and the Freedericksz transition in polymer stabilized nematic liquid crystals" (with P. A. Kossyrev, J. Qi, N. Priezjev  and Gregory P. Crawford), Appl. Phys. Lett. 81, 2986 (2002).

"Coarsening Dynamics of Biaxial Nematic Liquid Crystals" (with N. Priezjev), Phys. Rev. E 66, 051705 (2002). 

"The isotropic-cholesteric transition in liquid-crystalline gels" (with R. B. Meyer), Phys. Rev. E 66, 031706 (2002).

"The Electroclinic Effect and Modulated Phases in Smectic Liquid Crystals" (with R. B. Meyer),  Phys. Rev. E 65, 061704 (2002).

"Disclination Loop Behavior near the Nematic-Isotropic Transition" (with N. Priezjev), Phys. Rev. E 64, 031710 (2001).

"Cluster Monte Carlo Simulations of the Nematic-Isotropic Transition" (with N. Priezjev), Phys. Rev. E 63, 062702 (2001).