“Do we need more than physics to understand the world?” Liam Graham first asked himself this question as a teenager and it has been the driving force behind his career ever since. After a degree in Theoretical Physics at Cambridge and a master’s in Philosophy at Warwick, he eventually found economics to be an appealing middle ground and completed a PhD at Birkbeck College, London. To pay the rent, he taught English, developed and sold trading software and was the numbers’ guru for a boutique finance house.
Liam’s 15 year academic career was mostly spent as an Associate Professor at University College London, working in one of Europe’s top Economics departments. His research involved building mathematical models of an extremely complex system, the macroeconomy, and his work was published in all the top macroeconomics journals. Whether working on philosophy or economics, he never stopped reading science and exchanging with scientists. In 2018 he left UCL to concentrate on his original question and the wide-ranging, multidisciplinary and endlessly fascinating project it has become. His first book, “Molecular Storms: the Physics of Stars, Cells and the Origin of Life” was published by Springer Nature in 2023.