Rate My Professor John Bechhoefer

John Bechhoefer is the Distinguished SFU Professor in the Department of Physics at Simon Fraser University, where he has been a faculty member since 1990. He began his academic career at SFU as an Assistant Professor from 1990 to 1994, advanced to Associate Professor from 1994 to 2000, became a full Professor in 2000, and was appointed Distinguished SFU Professor in 2022. Prior to joining SFU, he held postdoctoral fellowships at École Normale Supérieure de Lyon and Université de Paris-Sud from 1988 to 1990. Bechhoefer has also served as a visiting professor or researcher at institutions including Harvard University Systems Biology Department from 2010 to 2011, Université du Luxembourg from 2017 to 2018, Weizmann Institute in 1997, and several institutions in France such as École Normale Supérieure de Lyon and Université de Rennes. He earned an A.B. from Harvard College in 1982, an M.Sc. from the University of Chicago in 1985, and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1988.

Bechhoefer's research specializations include stochastic thermodynamics, biophysics, control theory applied to physics, soft matter, nanotechnology, and nonlinear physics. He leads the Chaos research group at SFU, investigating topics such as information engines, colloidal systems, and nonequilibrium processes. He is the author of the book Control Theory for Physicists published by Cambridge University Press in 2021. Key publications include “Exponentially faster cooling in a colloidal system” in Nature (2020), “Maximizing power and velocity of an information engine” in PNAS (2021), “Bayesian Information Engine that Optimally Exploits Noisy Measurements” in Physical Review Letters (2022), “Finite-time Landauer principle” in Physical Review Letters (2020), “Direct measurement of nonequilibrium system entropy is consistent with Gibbs-Shannon form” in PNAS (2017), and “High-precision test of Landauer’s principle in a feedback trap” in Physical Review Letters (2014). Many of these works have been recognized as Editors’ Suggestions or featured in outlets such as Physics Today.

Bechhoefer has received major awards including Fellowship in the Royal Society of Canada (2021), Fellowship in the American Physical Society (2009), the Inaugural Lifetime Referee Award from the American Physical Society (2008), Dean of Graduate Studies Award for Excellence in Supervision at Simon Fraser University (2017), and Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (1992).