physics: the scientific study of matter, energy, space, time, and the relationships between them.
aleks’ favourite topics during his undergraduate were optics, statistics, and signal processing. this reflects in his graduate work which focuses on experimental theory – specifically for topics regarding the interpretation of signal and noise in atomic force microscopy.
experimental theory - as defined here - is the collection of theoretical work which attempts to relate raw experimental data to true physical quantities, as well as explain the fundamental instrumental limits for detecting vanishingly small physical signals. this field of research makes up most of aleks' publication record. a large part of this work is also described in his phd thesis: adventures in atomic force microscopy: towards the study of the solid-liquid interface