February 25th, 2026
The Physics of a Squeak
Researchers in the lab of Katia Bertoldi, the William and Ami Kuan Danoff Professor of Applied Mechanics at SEAS, published a study reporting that squeaking emerges from a previously unseen mechanism. Answering the question ‘why do gym sneakers squeak’ could lead to new ways to engineer and control tunable frictional metamaterials.
