Pankaj Mehta

Pankaj Mehta is an American theoretical physicist whose research has involved biophysics, statistical physics, machine learning theory, and hard condensed matter theory. He is a professor of Physics at Boston University.

Mehta has worked on statistical mechanics tools in theoretical community ecology, biological information processing, and cell fate development models. In his work on theoretical ecology, Mehta has described consumer-resource models and statistical physics-based approaches to niche and coexistence theory.

Education and career
Mehta received a B.S. in mathematics from California Institute of Technology in 2000. Mehta then received his PhD in physics from Rutgers University specializing in hard condensed matter physics in 2006 under the supervision of Natan Andrei. He was a postdoctoral scholar at Princeton University's departments of molecular biology and physics where he worked under the supervision of Ned Wingreen from 2006-2010.

In 2010, Mehta became an assistant professor in the Boston University department of physics, later receiving tenure in 2015. At Boston University, he is a member of the Faculty of Computing and Data Sciences. He is an affiliate faculty member of Boston University's Department of Biomedical Engineering, Center for Regenerative Medicine, and Biological Design Center. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

Honors

 * Fellow of the American Physical Society, nominated by the Division of Biological Physics (2023), for "creative and impactful use of statistical mechanics tools in addressing a broad range of problems, from biological information processing and microbial ecology to machine learning theory."
 * Simons Investigator in the Mathematical Modeling of Living Systems (2014)
 * Scialog Fellow, Molecules Come to Life (2014)
 * Gerald and Deanne Gitner Family Innovation in Teaching Award (2014)
 * Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (2011)

Publications

 * See Quanta and Wired magazines.
 * From Les Houches School of Physics.
 * See Physics (magazine).
 * See Physics (magazine).
 * See Physics (magazine).
 * See Physics (magazine).
 * See Physics (magazine).