Gavin Earl Crooks is known for his work on non-equilibrium thermodynamics and statistical mechanics.
He discovered the Crooks fluctuation theorem, a general statement about the free energy difference between the initial and final states of a non-equilibrium transformation.
His master's advisor was R. H. Robinson, and his thesis was entitled "Characterization of Lipases in Water-in-Oil Microemulsions".
He did significant[clarification needed] work on transition path sampling as well as nonequilibrium statistical mechanics.
He briefly left science to work for an internet startup doughtnet.com, but he later returned to theoretical chemistry, accepting a postdoctoral fellowship with the Computational Genomics Research Group led by Steven Brenner.