Trevor GrandPre has recently joined WashU as an assistant professor of physics and has just accepted our offer to become a fellow in the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences. His research focuses on non-equilibrium statistical physics and soft condensed matter physics, with an emphasis on criticality in biological systems. Among his interests is astrobiology, including the study and engineering of microbial systems for carbon fixation in space.

GrandPre is an alumnus of DePaul University and the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in physics in 2014 and his PhD in 2021. From 2021-2025, he was an independent postdoctoral fellow at the Center for the Physics of Biological Function (CPBF) and the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science (PCTS), as well as a Schmidt Science Fellow, at Princeton University.