The GrandPre Lab at WashU

I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be starting my research group as an Assistant Professor at @WashUPhysics in Fall 2025! My group will focus on criticality and phase transitions in biology, particularly biomolecular condensates, gene regulation, and adaptive immune systems. Keep an eye out for recruitment details—both a postdoc and graduate students—and for the forthcoming GrandPre Lab webpage.

I’m so grateful for the chance to continue exploring and discovering in physics. My sincerest thanks go to my mentors—David Limmer, Ned Wingreen, and William Bialek—for their guidance and support. I also want to thank Rhonda Harley (DePaul / now USD) and Ira Young (UC Berkeley), who were always there for me after tough weeks. And of course, deepest thanks to my wife, Tiffany Tenille, for her unwavering love and support.

As I step into this new chapter, I’ve been reflecting on how far I’ve come: from an eager undergrad at DePaul University studying physics and biology, to a small fish in a big pond at UC Berkeley as a graduate student, then on to a postdoc at Princeton. Through it all, my passion for learning physics has only grown.

At UC Berkeley, I’d spend Friday afternoons at the physics library to scope out the newest arrivals. Every week, the library would bring in fresh books, and instead of looking for something specific, I’d roam the aisles for books that hadn’t been opened in a while—just to discover “new-to-me” physics.

By the end of my degree, I had learned an incredible amount and began pushing the boundaries of nonequilibrium soft matter. At Princeton, I applied this background to biophysics. One thing I realized is how easy it is to think you’ve mastered a field—until you start working with people in new environments. I learned a crucial lesson: never stop asking why you’re studying something, and always chase the questions that keep you up at night.

While writing my thesis, I remember having extremely vivid lucid dreams, possibly because my brain was overstimulated. Sometimes I’d wake up at 3 a.m. just to jot down ideas before drifting back to sleep. Having that kind of passion for science is what keeps me excited about what I do.

At Princeton, I was fortunate to conduct independent research and work on the many ideas that interested me—but I was only one person, and there just weren’t enough hours in the day. I learned to prioritize certain projects and either keep others as side pursuits or hand them off to people who were equally enthusiastic. This strategy doesn’t work for everyone, but I personally thrive when exploring multiple areas. Even so, my main focus as a postdoc was applying my soft matter background to biophysical systems, especially biomolecular condensates, which are intracellular droplets formed through phase separation.

In this new chapter as an Assistant Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, I’ll be applying my background in non-equilibrium statistical physics to biological systems. Recent technological advances now allow us to measure biological processes at unprecedented scales, creating a need for new physical models to interpret these observations. My goal is to develop theories that not only explain current experiments but also predict phenomena beyond our present experimental reach, with a particular focus on microscopic biological processes that are too small, fast, or noisy to measure.

I’m excited to build a research group devoted to using statistical physics to advance our understanding of phase transitions in biology. If this resonates with you and you’re looking for a postdoc position, apply via this link: https://wustl.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/External/job/Postdoctoral-Research-Associate---Physics_JR88340

Please feel free to contact me directly with at trevorg@wustl.edu if you have any questions or would like to learn more about the available positions.