Elizabeth Read has built a research program at the intersection of mathematical biology and scientific computing, incorporating theoretical and algorithmic approaches from the field of chemical physics. She is currently an Associate Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Irvine.

Read’s research group specializes in stochastic modelling and has developed new theoretical and computational approaches to study complex system dynamics, including rare event simulation methods and methods for analysing metastability in nonlinear biochemical networks. Her group has also introduced new approaches for integrating data-driven (statistical) and hypothesis-driven (mechanistic) modelling approaches, including in applications to inferring enzymatic mechanisms from cell-based genome-wide data. She was named a Scialog fellow in Chemical Machinery of the Cell from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. Read has been active in building interdisciplinary research centres and collaborative teams funded by US funding agencies and centred at the University of California, Irvine.