Lisa Lapidus

Lisa Lapidus is a Professor at Michigan State University in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. She received her Ph.D. in 1998 from Harvard University working in Atomic Physics, but after finishing graduate school, she made a switch into Biophysics. This shift in focus gave Lisa a unique perspective of what it is like to learn a new field as a relative outsider.
The Lapidus lab at Michigan State University investigates the dynamics of disordered proteins during folding, during aggregation, and in cellular environments using a variety of optical techniques. The lab also uses many different computational methods to model the experiments they do and collaborates closely with biologists, chemists and physicists from around the world. Lisa developed the curriculum in this book for introductory physics courses taught starting in 2016 at Michigan State University. Since then, this curriculum has been taught to thousands of students using active learning techniques.
Lisa and her husband have two grown children who enjoy science but never want to follow in their mother’s footsteps. When not in the lab or teaching, Lisa enjoys photography, cooking, and gardening.