Graduate work in Particle Theory and Biophysics ? Possible ?

[goblu91]

Hi,

I am starting graduate work next fall in biophysics, mostly simulations. It's not that biophysics doesn't appeal to me, but my primary interests are in particle theory. Eventually, I would want to learn qft, gr, geometry and topology, the essentials for understanding superstring theory. Only thing that is stopping me from wholeheartedly following particle theory is the dearth of postdoc positions in the field, and I have some student loans to pay off after graduate school.
I was wondering if I can work on both fields in tandem and still make meaningful contributions in either of the fields.
I know my plans sound a little too grandiose, but I would like to know if anyone has ever done anything like that, and if such a thing is feasible.

Any input will be highly appreciated !P.S. : I don't mind having no life.

 

[TheKracken]

Where are you going to grad school at? I am sure it highly depends if there is someone there that works on that sort of research. I do know one professor at UCSC who works on the intersections of Quantum Field Theory and BioPhysics.
Here is a link to his page.
http://www.kitp.ucsb.edu/zee

 

[goblu91]

I am going to grad school at ASU. It's definitely not one of the top schools, but that's because I have ties in AZ that I can't leave behind.
Thanks for sharing ! I did come across Zee before in context of his text on QFT. But it's hard for me to see an intersection between biophysics and QFT, since the latter has to do with relativistic phenomena that I can't expect in biological scales. But he DID use mathematical methods used in QFT to solve certain problems in biophy, and that sort of work does appeal to me.
I was wondering more about working in parallel on say two research projects at a time, one in biophy and one in particle theory. Is such a thing possible ? Has anyone ever done that ?