The goal of this work is to investigate the effects of local mechanical environment on the architecture and geometry of cells and the collagen networks in collagenous tissue. A technique to quantify local mechanical environments is proposed which uses light scattered from gold nanorods to create a pattern marker for optical measurements. This method will generating small scale field data and can be used in for measurements in realistic three-dimensional materials. The potential exists to extend this method by derivatizing the nanorods to target specific molecular components and track specific events. Three aspects of tissue architecture - cell orientation, collagen alignment and multi-cell spatial organization - will be characterized and correlated to the measured local mechanical environment. As a broader impact, students from humanist fields will function as participant-observers: producing commentaries on how science is done, articles explaining science or imagining the future, and art work based on the science.
