Education

2000 - 2005     MSc Chemical Engineering, Politecnico di Torino (Italy). Grade: 110/110 points.

2004 - 2005     Research Student, TU Berlin (Germany). Grade: 1.0/1.0

2006 - 2009     PhD studies “On a coarse-graining principle in colloidal physics with application to fluid and arrested colloidal suspensions in shearing fields“supervised by Prof. M. Morbidelli, Department of Chemistry, ETH Zurich.

28 October 2009: PhD degree in Chemical Physics, ETH Zurich.

 

Postdoctoral work

2010 - 2011     Swiss National Science Foundation Research Fellow at Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge UK, theory of soft and biological matter. Mentor: Prof. E.M. Terentjev.

2011 - 2014     Oppenheimer Early-Career Research Fellow in physics, Theory of Condensed Matter (TCM) Group, and Staff Member in the Biological and Soft matter Systems (BSS) Sector, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK. Research on soft matter, polymer materials, disordered systems, nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, amorphous solids, proteins, colloidal systems.

 

Publications output

• 43 articles published in peer-reviewed journals, h-index = 13 (Web of Science), = 15 (Google Scholar)

 

Scholarships & Awards

• Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) Professorship

•  Rudolf Moessbauer Fellowship of the Institute for Advanced Study, Technical University Munich

• Oppenheimer Research Fellowship, University of Cambridge (average success rate ~3%).

• Swiss National Science Foundation Fellowship for Postdoctoral Researchers

• Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship

• Erasmus Scholarship for research students

• ETH Medal Award for outstanding PhD thesis (top 4%).

 

Personal profile

• Theoretical physicist, with experience in lattice dynamics theory of solids, singular perturbation methods (matched asymptotic expansions), stochastic methods (Fokker-Planck equations, random matrix theory), many-body theories of liquid matter, nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, radiation scattering, rheology, polymer physics, theory of chemical reactions in condensed media, molecular dynamics and Monte-Carlo simulations, Computational Fluid Dynamics.

• Experienced in working in close collaboration with experimental groups across Europe, and with large interdisciplinary teams, and also in collaboration with companies (5-year industrial collaboration with BASF, Germany).

 

Teaching experience & Supervision

• 2011 - present: principal supervisor of Breanndan O’Conchuir (PhD student in Physics) at the University of Cambridge.

•  2010 – present: regular graduate lectures on advanced topics in statistical physics, in particular modern kinetic theory and its applications (fractals, nonequilibrium phase transitions, nonequilibrium statistical mechanics), and scattering theory with applications in radiation scattering technique for fundamental soft matter research.

• 2010 - 2011: supervisor in the Statistical and Thermal Physics course (3rd year undergraduates) at the University of Cambridge.

• 2008 - 2009: assistant in the Polymer Reaction Engineering course (4th year undergraduates), at the Institute of Chemical and Bioengineering, ETH Zurich.

• 2006 - 2008: laboratory demonstrator, ETH Zurich. Demonstrated in experimental classes of 1st year chemistry undergraduates.

• 2007 - 2010: supervision of three MSc Thesis research students at ETH Zurich, two in Chemical Engineering (Emma De Martino and Daniele Gentili) and one in Theoretical Physics (Enzo Scossa-Romano).

• Member of the Examination Committee at the University of Cambridge for Anna Lappala, 1st year report for PhD candidacy, and Milos Keznevich, 1st year report for PhD candidacy.

 

Research interests

• Mathematical modelling of soft matter and materials

• Theory of amorphous solids, glass transition, and disordered systems

• Physics of colloids and polymers

• Nonequilibrium statistical mechanics

• Protein biophysics

• Molecular dynamics, Brownian dynamics, and Monte-Carlo simulations

• Strongly-coupled and astrophysical plasmas

 

Professional activities and memberships

• Member of the American Physical Society, and of the Polymer Physics, Condensed Matter Physics and Plasma Physics Divisions of the American Physical Society

• Industrial collaboration (modeling of industrial polymer colloids under flow) with BASF, Germany (2006-2011)

• Referee for Physical Review Letters, Physical Review X, Physical Review B, Physical Review E, Soft Matter, Langmuir, Biomacromolecules.

 

Grants and third-party funding

• Swiss National Foundation: 60’000 CHF for 1-year post-doc at the University of Cambridge, 2010 - 2011

• Oppenheimer Fund: 152’000 GBP for 3-year Research Fellowship at the University of Cambridge, 2011-2014.

• Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability: 75’000 GBP for 3-year PhD student under my supervision (Breanndan O’Conchuir), 2011-2014.

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