Joshua Shaevitz

Joshua Shaevitz is a professor of physics and biophysics in the Department of Physics and a professor in the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University. He serves as Director of the Graduate Program in Biophysics and co-Director of the Center for the Physics of Biological Function. Shaevitz obtained his B.A. in Physics from Columbia University in 1999, M.S. in Physics from Stanford University in 2002, and Ph.D. in Physics from Stanford University in 2004. His doctoral thesis, advised by Steven M. Block, examined the biophysics of molecular motors including kinesin and RNA polymerase using optical trapping techniques. Prior to Princeton, he was a Miller Research Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley from 2004 to 2007. At Princeton, he began as Assistant Professor in 2007, was promoted to Associate Professor in 2013, and continues as full Professor.

The research in the Shaevitz Lab explores fundamental physical principles underlying biological processes, investigating how life emerges from collections of molecules, cells, and organisms. Key areas include bacterial cell growth, division, motility, and pattern formation, as well as the neural generation of discrete animal behaviors. The group employs precision measurements, advanced microscopy, computer vision, machine learning, and theoretical modeling. Shaevitz has been recognized with the American Physical Society Fellowship in 2019, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2009, Pew Scholarship in the Biomedical Sciences from 2009 to 2013, National Science Foundation CAREER Award from 2009 to 2014, Sloan Research Fellowship from 2008 to 2010, and Human Frontier Science Program Young Investigator Award from 2008 to 2011. Prominent publications feature "Helical insertion of peptidoglycan produces elongation and chiral ordering of the bacterial cell wall" in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2012), "The bacterial actin MreB rotates, and rotation depends on cell-wall assembly" in PNAS (2011), "Direct Measurement of Cell Wall Stress Stiffening and Turgor Pressure in Live Bacterial Cells" in Physical Review Letters (2011), and recent articles in Nature Physics, PNAS, and Nature Communications (2025). Shaevitz contributes to the academic community through service on the Executive Committee of the Lewis-Sigler Institute since 2012, graduate admissions committees, and as a Visiting Scientist at the Janelia Research Campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Professional Email: shaevitz@princeton.edu