He received his PhD in 2004 from Stanford University where he studied the molecular motors kinesin[3] and RNA polymerase[4][5] using optical tweezers in the group of Steven Block.

[8] Since 2007, Shaevitz has been on the faculty of Princeton University with appointments in the Department of Physics and the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics where he holds the rank of Professor.

This work includes measurement of the mechanochemistry of individual gliding motors inside live bacteria[17][18] and the connection between active matter phase transitions and evolutionarily advantageous fruiting body formation.

Shaevitz and Princeton Neuroscience professor Mala Murthy published an automated system (LEAP) for measuring animal pose from large movie data sets.

[22] His work has extended to understanding the dynamics of animal behavior through unsupervised clustering methods in collaboration with Princeton Physics colleague William Bialek and others.