Academic Profile : Faculty

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Assoc Prof Massimo Pica Ciamarra
Assistant Chair (Internship), School of Physical & Mathematical Sciences - Division of Physics & Applied Physics
Associate Professor, School of Physical & Mathematical Sciences - Division of Physics & Applied Physics
External Links
 
Dr. Pica Ciamarra received his Laurea degree and his Ph.D. in Physics and Applied Physics from the University of Naples, Italy, in 2000 and 2003, respectively. He was a Fulbright fellow in 2002-2004 at the Center For Nonlinear Dynamics at the University of Texas at Austin, and a post-doctoral researcher first at the University of Naples and then at the Italian National Consortium for the Physics of Matter in 2005-2009. He his a senior researcher at the Italian National Research Council since 2010.
We are interested in understanding the physics of disordered many-particle systems via statistical mechanics tools and numerical simulations, arguably one of material science's most pressing needs. Such an understanding is crucial to 1) design atomic or polymeric disordered materials with specific mechanical and rheological properties; 2) rationalize natural catastrophic events, such as earthquakes and avalanches; 3) improve the many industrial products and processes handling particulate media, from the food to the pharmaceutical and the electronic industry. The main difficulty is the developing of a theoretical framework connecting the macroscopic and the microscopic scales in the presence of disorder. Some topics of specific interest are:


1. glass and jamming transition

2. suspensions of soft deformable particles, epithelial tissues and microgels

3. mechanical and rheological properties of disordered particulate systems, with applications to earthquakes
 
  • Dynamical and Mechanical properties of epithelial cell tissues: from the bottom up
  • Understanding the motile to sessile transition in bacterial colonies through mechanics and cell behaviours
  • Defects and structure-dynamics correlations in supercooled liquids
Courses Taught
PH2103 Thermal Physics

CH5202 Food Physics

PH4603 Soft Condensed Matter Physics