Glazier's journey to Indiana University began not in biology but in physics. While a graduate student, he worked in what would come to be called complex systems, where he was introduced to fluid dynamics. This early exposure would prove foundational to his later work in biology.

It was during a postdoctoral stint in Japan that Glazier’s interdisciplinary approach truly took shape. The lab he worked in had everything from wet lab neuroscience to a fabrication line that focused on integrated circuits. Nobody saw any contradiction about putting complex systems and pattern formation questions together, he says, whether it was in living systems, integrated circuits, fluids, or structured materials.

This experience shaped Glazier’s philosophy on science.

“I think connections are critical and understanding how connections work is critical,” says Glazier, who has been at IU since 2002 after stops at UC Santa Barbara, UCLA, the University of Notre Dame, Tohoku University, and the University of Grenoble, among others. “A lot of my life has been devoted to trying to understand how robustness and fragility happen, in particular developmental biology, but also in what we’d call developmental diseases, like cancer.”

Perhaps Glazier’s most significant contribution to the field is CompuCell3D, a software framework for multi-scale simulation of multicellular organisms. Developed more than 30 years ago, CompuCell3D has become a standard in the field, used by scientists worldwide for research on cancer, immunology, developmental biology, and more.

“We’re most proud when people we have never met decide to use our tools,” he says. “That means our tools are providing a service to the world and not just to ourselves."

The impact of CompuCell3D extends far beyond IU Luddy. The Environmental Protection Agency uses it to assess developmental toxicants, while other universities employ it as an educational tool. Its user-friendly interface has even allowed high school students to write major scientific papers through the software.

That people from all over the world have adopted this methodology to advance science provides Glazier with a sense of accomplishment, but perhaps not so great as the fact that a high school student can master it and do meaningful science with it, he says.

Glazier’s current focus is on developing medical digital twins, a technology that holds the promise to revolutionize personalized medicine. The goal is to develop models of people’s skin and eyes so that if a person develops a disease, doctors would be able to quickly identify the best treatment for that specific individual.

This work involves building detailed virtual models through which experiments can be run with no risk to the patient. One aim is to treat blindness in people with retinal diseases and age-related macular degeneration – or prevent them from developing at all. Glazier is also collaborating with Procter & Gamble to help them develop shampoos that reduce injury when they get in the eye, potentially leading to new drug treatments for cornea damage.

“The eye is a tricky organ,” Glazier says. “It's different from other tissues. We need the computational methods to understand what is going on with it. Think about how many people whose lives would be positively affected.”

But Glazier's vision extends beyond just eyes and skin. He is working with a group in the Netherlands to understand spina bifida, a condition affecting the spine that can cause bladder and bowel issues and leg weakness. Another collaboration with the University of Virginia is applying his methodology to study why women have reduced muscle healing after menopause.

Throughout his career, Glazier has emphasized the importance of collaboration and interdisciplinary research. His goal has always been to try to connect A to B, whether that is modelers with experimentalists, clinicians with mathematicians, or high school students with mentors.

This commitment to collaboration and innovation has not gone unnoticed. Glazier was recently awarded the 2025 Klaus Schulten and Zaida Luthey-Schulten Computational Biophysics Lecture Award by the Biophysical Society, recognizing his pioneering work in applying physics-based computer simulations to understand important scientific and medical problems.

This recognition speaks directly to what might be Glazier’s superpower – the ability to connect the dots between apparently dissimilar problems, taking methods developed in one context and deploying them in another.

This approach is highlighted in his paper, "Magnetization to Morphogenesis: A Brief History of the Glazier-Graner-Hogeweg Model," which talks about taking methodology used in materials science and transferring it to the apparently unrelated domain of tissue biology.