Dr. Lisa Tran

Lisa Tran is currently an Assistant Professor in the Physics Department. She obtained her PhD in physics at the University of Pennsylvania, and afterwards she was a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University funded by the Simons Society of Fellows. With the support of a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship and a NWO Veni grant, she moved across the Atlantic to Utrecht University. Lisa’s research group strives to uncover the fundamental organizing principles of soft and biological materials, with a special focus on liquid crystals. Her group uses these fundamental insights to mimic the structures found in living organisms with the goal of developing new, sustainable materials.

How do we engineer the structures found in nature within the laboratory?

Lisa Tran has been a member of the Utrecht Young Academy, a bridge between young and talented researchers, since 2024.