CV

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last update: 05.03.2025

Professional Experiences

Nov 2024 - now ELBE Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for System Biology Dresden (CSBD) / Max Planck Institute for Physics of Complex Systems (PKS) / Cell Biology and Genetics (CBG), Dresden, Germany

Jan 2023 - May 2023 JSPS Fellow (Strategic Program), Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), Okinawa, Japan

Education

2020 - 2024 Ph.D. in Physics, Laboratory of Statistical Biophysics (LBS), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland

2018 - 2020 M.Sc. in Physics, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland

2014 - 2018 B.Sc. in Physics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China - With a joint degree, B.Sc. in Physics with Theoretical Physic (First Class Honours), from the University of Manchester

Publications

Preprints

[10] Bao, R.$^✉$ and Liang, S.$^✉$, 2024. Nonequilibrium Response Theory: From Precision Limits to Strong Perturbation. arXiv preprint, arXiv:2412.19602.

[9] Liang, S.$^✉$, De Los Rios, P. and Busiello, D. M.$^✉$, 2024. Thermodynamic Space of Chemical Reaction Networks. arXiv preprint, arXiv:2407.11498.

Peer-Reviewd

[8] Liang, S.$^✉$, Ma, Y.-H.$^✉$, Busiello, D. M. and De Los Rios, P., 2025. Minimal Model for Carnot Efficiency at Maximum Power. , Phys. Rev. Lett. 134(2), 027101.

[7] Cao, Y.$^✉$ and Liang, S.$^✉$, 2025. Stochastic thermodynamics for biological functions. Quantitative Biology, 13(1), p.e75.

[6] Liang, S.$^✉$, De Los Rios, P. and Busiello, D. M.$^✉$, 2024. Thermodynamic Bounds on Symmetry Breaking in Linear and Catalytic Biochemical Systems. Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 228402.

[5] Liang, S., Pigolotti, S., 2023. Thermodynamic bounds on time-reversal asymmetry. Phys. Rev. E (Letter) 108, L062101.

[4] Liang, S., Busiello, D. M. and De Los Rios, P.$^✉$, 2022. Emergent thermophoretic behavior in chemical reaction systems. New Journal of Physics, 24(12), p.123006.

[3] Liang, S., De Los Rios, P. and Busiello, D. M.$^✉$, 2021. Dissipation-Driven Selection under Finite Diffusion: Hints from Equilibrium and Separation of Time Scales. Entropy, 23(8), p.1068.

[2] Busiello, D. M.$^✉$, Liang, S., Piazza, F. and De Los Rios, P., 2021. Dissipation-driven selection of states in non-equilibrium chemical networks. Communications Chemistry, 4(1), p.16.

[1] Dass, A.V., Georgelin, T., Westall, F., Foucher, F., De Los Rios, P., Busiello, D. M., Liang, S. and Piazza, F.$^✉$, 2021. Equilibrium and non-equilibrium furanose selection in the ribose isomerisation network. Nature communications, 12(1), p.2749.

Awards, Grants & Honours

• 2024: ELBE Postdoctoral Fellowship, CSBD
• 2024: APS DBIO travel award (400 USD, declined due to visa issue)
• 2023: JSPS Fellowship (Strategic) for research in Japan (220,000 JPY per month for 5 months + research allowance)
• 2022: Best Short Talk Award, 7th Beijing Soft Matter Workshop
• 2016 - 2017: National Training Program of Innovation and Entrepreneurship for Undergraduates (20,000 CNY research allowance)
• 2015 - 2018: Scholarship of National Scheme for Cultivating Top-notch Students in Basic Disciplines, China
• 2015: The Second Prize, The 8th Undergraduate Physical Experiment Competition of Beijing
• 2015: The Second Prize, China Undergraduate Physics Tournament
• 2014-2015 & 2015-2016: The Second Prize Scholarship in Beijing Normal University

Teaching and supervising

• 1 Master thesis and 1 Master semester project at EPFL
• Teaching Assistant, Analytic mechanics at EPFL, 2022/23
• Teaching Assistant, Statistical physics of biomacromoleculesat at EPFL, 2022
• Teaching Assistant, Biophysics : physics of the cell at EPFL, 2021

Service

2022-now Founder and organizer of Statistical Physics Youth Communications

• Founded and lead a vibrant community of 250+ early-career researchers in statistical physics
• Coordinate online seminars featuring recent advances in statistical physics, with 14 successful sessions completed

2024-2025 Co-organizer of JiZhi Nonequilibrium Statistical Physics Study Group

• Design and coordinate a structured 16-session program covering fundamental and advanced topics with 300+ participants

Schools, Workshops & Conferences

Jan 2025 Physical Biology Circle Meeting 2025

• GIMM, Lisbon, Portugal
• Contributed talk: Thermodynamic Constraints Shape the Design Space of Biological Functions

July 2024 Frontiers in Non-equilibrium Physics 2024

• YITP, Kyoto, Japan
• Contributed talk: A Minimal model for Carnot efficiency at maximum power

March 2024 Information Processing, Noise, and Adaptation in Living Systems - Signal24

• Dresden, Germany
• Contributed talk: Universal thermodynamic bounds on symmetry breaking in living systems: from error correction to pattern formation

Jan. 2024 Modeling energy-consuming biomolecular processes

• Lausanne, Switzerland
• Poster: Universal thermodynamic bounds on symmetry breaking in living systems: from error correction to pattern formation

Aug. 2023 StatPhys28

• Tokyo, Japan
• Contributed talk: Universal thermodynamic bounds on symmetry breaking in living systems: from error correction to pattern formation

Jun. 2023 Molecular Origins of Life, Munich

• Online
• Poster: Emergent thermophoretic behavior in chemical reaction systems

May 2023 Workshop on Stochastic Thermodynamics - WOST IV

• ICTP, Italy
• Contributed talk: Universal thermodynamic bounds on symmetry breaking in living systems: from error correction to pattern formation [Video]

Mar. 2023 APS March Meeting

• Online
• Contributed talk: Universal thermodynamic bounds on spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking

Dec. 2022 (Post)modern Thermodynamics School & Workshop

• Luxembourg University, Luxembourg
• Poster: Emergent thermophoretic behavior in chemical reaction systems

Sep. 2022 School on Information, Noise, and Physics of Life

• Niš, Serbia

Jul. 2022 7th Beijing Soft Matter Workshop

• Beijing, China
• Talk: Emergent thermophoretic behavior for particles with internal states
• Best Short Talk Award

Jun. 2022 Molecular Origins of Life

• Munich, Germany
• Poster: Universal thermodynamic bounds on spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking

May 2021 14th International meeting on Thermodiffusion

• NTNU, Trondheim, Norway
• Poster: Thermophoresis of multi-state particles

Sep. 2019 IX GEFENOL Summer School on Statistical Physics of Complex Systems

• Universidad de Cantabria, Santander, Spain

Aug. 2019 Mathematics of Deep Learning

• Zuse Institute Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Aug. 2019 Bad Honnef Physics School: Physics of Bacteria

• Physikzentrum Bad Honnef, Germany

Jul. 2019 Hands-On Research in Complex Systems School

• ICTP, Trieste, Italy
• Poster: The cluster structure of high-efficiency photosystem (PS I)

Jun. 2017 Introduction to Complex Systems Summer School

• Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands

Invited Talks

1. Thermodynamic Constraints on Biological Processes, CSBD, Dresden, Germany, May 2024
2. Thermodynamic cost of spatiotemporal symmetry breaking, LMU, Munich, Germany, Nov 2023
3. Thermodynamic cost of time-reversal symmetry breaking, MPI-PKS, Dresden, Germany, Nov 2023
4. Thermodynamic cost to break spatiotemporal symmetry, BICMR, Peking University, Beijing, China, Aug 2023
5. Why must life be out of equilibrium, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China Aug 2023
6. Thermodynamics on the origin and the present of life, ELSI, Tokyo, Japan, May 2023
7. Thermodynamics on the origin and the present of life, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, May 2023
8. Symmetry breaking in the present and origin of life, USTC, Hefei, China (Online), Jan 2023
9. Non-isothermal chemical reaction networks: hints to the origins of life, MISANU, Serbia (Online), Nov 2022

Skills

• Programming Language: Python, Mathematica, MATLAB, C++
• Computer Skills: LaTeX, Jupyter Notebook, Git, Linux, Microsoft Office
• Scientific Computing: Numpy, Scipy, Sympy, Monte Carlo Simulation, Molecular Dynamics Simulation
• Machine Learning: Pytorch, TensorFlow