Dr. Samantha Lish

Samantha Lish is a theoretical biophysicist interested in the emergence of life across scales during proliferation and development. Specifically, she investigates how the exchange of mechanical and morphogenetic cues at the single-cell level give rise to energetically favourable tissue architecture in proliferating active matter systems, including morphogenesis, regeneration, and metastasis. Working at the intersection of non-equilibrium statistical physics and biomedicine, using high-resolution imaging, her research hinges on interdisciplinary expertise. Awarded the NIH–Oxford–Cambridge Full Merit Scholarship, she received her doctorate from the University of Oxford, during which time she spearheaded an international collaboration between the National Institutes of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, the Oxford Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, and the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization.

Adopting an iterative approach to combine empirical observations from high resolution microscopy with testable theoretical predictions, she developed a data-driven framework to study embryoid self-organization, revealing that macroscopic tissue patterning is encoded within progenitor populations. This novel insight into the embryo as a living material provides a route to deciphering multiscale population dynamics, which present the challenge of multiple tissues interacting simultaneously, continually forming and dissolving interfaces during fate specification, division, death, and migration.

Her postdoctoral work at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology, jointly conducted between the Departments of Physics and Medicine, extends her experience in active matter theory from embryogenesis to cancer. Specifically, she investigates how adhesion, mechanical forces, and extracellular matrix properties bias migratory behaviour in the tumour microenvironment toward individual versus collective invasion.

Samantha’s commitment to interdisciplinary problem-solving extends beyond the laboratory and into the studio; as an artist–science educator, she has developed STEAM curricula (incorporating art and design into STEM), organized Sci-Art exhibitions and lecture series, and forged institutional partnerships, reflecting a belief that societal progress is driven by creative thinking across boundaries.