A physics-based approach to study the structure, assembly and dynamical properties of a variety of soft materials, such as simple and complex fluids, colloidal systems, liquid crystals, polymers, granular matter and gels, including biological examples. Topics covered will include elasticity, viscosity and viscoelasticity, capillarity and wetting, phases and phase diagrams of soft materials, entropy-driven phase transitions, Brownian motion and active matter.