Thibault Bertrand

Thibault Bertrand is a Senior Lecturer in Applied Mathematics at Imperial College London's Department of Mathematics (Faculty of Natural Sciences). He holds affiliations with the Applied Mathematics and Mathematical Physics section, Biomathematics Group, and Physics of Life Network. His research focuses on non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, soft condensed matter physics, and stochastic processes, with applications in biological and social systems. Notable contributions include work on active matter, tissue dynamics, and jamming phenomena in disordered systems.

He earned his BSc and MSc (with honors) from Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan (now Paris-Saclay) and a PhD from Yale University in 2016, studying jamming in disordered systems under Prof. Corey S. O'Hern. Prior to Imperial, he was a postdoc at Sorbonne Université.

Teaching highlights include developing innovative courses at Yale’s Center for Engineering, Innovation, and Design (ENAS118 and ENAS344) and currently teaching MATH40001/40009 (Introduction to University Mathematics) and MATH50008 (PDEs in Action) at Imperial. In 2020, he received the President's Medal for Teaching Innovation with colleagues Dr. Marie-Amélie Lawn and Prof. Kevin Buzzard.

His lab (Bertrand Lab) explores stochastic dynamics in living systems using analytical and computational methods, collaborating with experimentalists across disciplines. Recent projects include modeling tissue growth via lattice Boltzmann methods and machine learning for defect detection in confluent cell layers.

Labs/Teams: Active member of Imperial's Physics of Life Network and co-organizer of the MathPhys seminar series. Current group members include Ross Monaghan (2024), Jane, Tamsin, Henry, Andy, and Luca Cocconi.