Richard Morris

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[Banner image: photo by Joel Filipe superimposed with photo by John Moeses Bauan on Unsplash]

Physical bedrocks of biology

Richard Morris is a physicist interested in investigating and quantifying the behaviour of living systems. He believes that modern biology goes hand-in-hand with theory and physics, where theoretical physics has an important role in influencing biological research.

Using the tools and principals of classical physics – including thermodynamics, hydrodynamics, and statistical mechanics – Richard’s team actively engage with experiments. They tackle a wide range of biological issues spanning from how shape and form emerges in tissues autonomously, to how cells process information during cell signalling events.

Richard's EMBL Australia profile

Learn more about the Theory of biological systems group

 

About Richard Morris (he/him)

After completing a Masters in Mathematical Physics from the University of Edinburgh, and following a short spell working in investment banking, Richard completed a PhD in Theoretical (Statistical) Physics from the University of Manchester. He then undertook postdocs at the Atomic Energy Commission in Saclay, France, and the University of Warwick, in the UK. This facilitated a transition from Statistical Physics to Theoretical Soft-Condensed Matter, a trajectory that concluded with a move into Biology when he took up the position of Simons Fellow at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in Bangalore, India. He was appointed as an EMBL Australia Group Leader in 2019, and has a joint position at UNSW Sydney, between Single Molecule Science (SMS) and the School of Physics. Richard is married with four daughters.

 

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