Biography

Christopher Jarzynski received his A.B. (with high honors) in 1987 from Princeton University and his Ph.D. in 1994 from University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on statistical mechanics and thermodynamics at the molecular level, with a particular focus on the foundations of nonequilibrium thermodynamics. His research group has worked on topics that include the application of statistical mechanics to problems of biophysical interest; the analysis of artificial molecular machines; the development of efficient numerical schemes for estimating thermodynamic properties of complex systems; the relationship between thermodynamics and information processing; quantum and classical shortcuts to adiabaticity; and quantum thermodynamics. Jarzynski is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a UMD Distinguished University Professor. He received the 2019 Lars Onsager Prize for theoretical statistical physics, a 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2020 Simons Fellowship. In 2020, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.