In the media
When physics meets ecology (WashU “The Source”, 2025)
Simple rules govern soil microbiome responses to environmental change (UChicago Biological Sciences News; 2025)
Want to find alien life? Look for patterns of energy (EarthSky.org)
How to (theoretically) spot an alien (WashU Ampersand; 2025)
Tikhonov wins NSF CAREER award (WashU Ampersand; 2024)
When predicting the function of microbial communities, simpler may be better (UChicago Biological Sciences News; 2023)
When more complex is simpler (WashU “The Source”; 2022)
Bacteria could learn to predict the future (WashU “The Source”; 2021)
Opinion: Microbiology Needs More Math (The Scientist Magazine; 2017)
Imagining a world without species (Harvard SEAS News; 2017)
Resource competition: When communities collide (eLife; 2016)
Grants and awards
🔹 01/2026 - Queenie wins the APS DBIO Travel award.
🔹 12/2025 - Chunhao & Queenie both win department funding to support their research in the spring.
🏅 09/2025 - Mikhail is awarded the NIH MIRA grant (5 years of research funding).
🏅 08/2025 - Mikhail & Seppe are awarded an ARO research grant (3 years).
🔹 04/2025 - Yunshi and Queenie win funding to do summer research with our group.
🏅 04/2025 - Mateja is awarded the McDonnell Academy Fellowship, and will join us in the fall.
🏅 07/2024 - Mikhail wins the NSF CAREER award (5 years of research funding).
🏅 09/2023 - Jake wins the prestigious Pioneer Postdoctoral Fellowship at UMichigan.
🏅 07/2023 - Mikhail & Otto are awarded the NSF Physics of Living Systems research grant (3 years).
News and milestones
🎓 05/2025 - Fang defends her PhD! Congratulations, Dr. Yu, on the new role at Huawei!
🎓 03/2025 - Mikhail is promoted with tenure.
🔹 01/2025 - Lucas is featured in the “department spotlight” newsletter for their work as the graduate Head Mentor.
🔹 03/2024 - Lucas is accepted into MBL Physiology course with full scholarship. 7 weeks of madness! Good luck!
🎓 05/2023 - Jake becomes the group's first ever PhD graduate! Congratulations, Dr. Moran!
🎓 03/2022 - Devon accepts a PhD offer from the Yale Biophysics program.
🔹 01/2022 - Jake is selected as one of the speakers for Princeton’s “up-and-coming biophysicists” symposium.