Rate My Professor Sheyum Syed

Sheyum Syed is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Miami, holding a secondary faculty appointment in Biology and serving as Director of Graduate Studies. He earned a B.A. in Physics from Lawrence University in 1997, an M.S. in Physics from Columbia University in 1999, and a Ph.D. in Physics from Columbia University in 2004, with Horst L. Störmer as his doctoral advisor. Following his Ph.D., Syed was a Postdoctoral Associate in Biophysics at the University of Illinois from 2004 to 2006 under Paul Selvin and a Postdoctoral Associate in Neuroscience at Rockefeller University from 2007 to 2012 with Michael W. Young. He joined the University of Miami as Assistant Professor of Physics in 2013 and was promoted to Associate Professor.

Syed's research centers on biological physics to elucidate complex behaviors in living systems, particularly circadian rhythms, sleep regulation, proteostasis, autophagy, and behavioral studies in Drosophila melanogaster models of human diseases including Alzheimer’s disease and SYNGAP1-related disorders. His earlier investigations addressed molecular motors such as myosin V orientation dynamics and kinesin-dynein peroxisome transport, alongside cyclotron resonance splitting in two-dimensional electron systems and AlGaN/GaN heterostructures. Key publications include “Kinesin and dynein move a peroxisome in vivo: A tug-of-war or coordinated movement?” (Science, 2005), “3-D orientation and position dynamics of myosin V” (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2006), “Kinetics of Doubletime kinase-dependent degradation of the Drosophila Period protein” (Journal of Biological Chemistry, 2011), and “Regulation of proteostasis by sleep through autophagy in Drosophila models of Alzheimer’s disease” (Life Science Alliance, 2024). His scholarship comprises over 60 publications garnering approximately 1,588 citations, impacting biophysics, neuroscience, and chronobiology. Syed has delivered invited lectures at New York University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Emory University, and international symposia on bio-nanosystems.