Mattia Gazzola

For more information

• Lab webpage
• paper2tree
• Elastica

Education

• PhD Mechanical Engineering, ETH Zurich, 2013
• MSc Nuclear Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, 2006
• BSc Energy Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, 2003

Academic Positions

• Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology Faculty, UIUC, 2020-date
• Blue Waters Professor, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, UIUC, 2016-date
• Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, UIUC, 2016-date
• Postdoctoral Fellow, SEAS, Harvard, 2013-2016

Research Interests

• Biolocomotion
• Bio-hybrid systems
• Fluid mechanics
• Soft mechanics
• Numerics
• High Performance Computing

Selected Articles in Journals

• Bhosale, Parthasarathy, Gazzola, "Shape curvature effects in viscous streaming", Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 2020.
• Weiner, Bhosale, Gazzola, King, "Mechanics of randomly packed filaments – the 'bird nest' as meta-material", Journal of Applied Physics, 2020.
• Aydin, Zhang, Nuethong, Pagan-Diaz, Bashir, Gazzola, Saif, "Neuromuscular actuation of biohybrid motile bots", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2019.
• Zhang, Chan, Parthasarathy, Gazzola, "Modeling and simulation of complex dynamic musculoskeletal architectures", Nature Communications, 2019.
• Parthasarathy, Chan, Gazzola, "Streaming-enhanced flow-mediated transport", Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 2019.
• Charles, Gazzola, Mahadevan, "Topology, geometry, and mechanics of strongly stretched and twisted filaments: solenoids, plectonemes, and artificial muscle fibers", Physical Review Letters, 2019.
• Gazzola, Dudte, McCormick, Mahadevan, "Forward and inverse problems in the mechanics of soft filaments", Royal Society Open Science, 2018.
• Pagan‐Diaz, Zhang, Grant, Kim, Aydin, Cvetkovic, Ko, Solomon, Hollis, Kong, Saif, Gazzola, Bashir, "Simulation and fabrication of stronger, larger and faster walking biohybrid machines", Advanced Functional Materials, 2018.
• Park, Gazzola, Park, Park, Di Santo, Blevins, Lind, Campbell, Dauth, Capulli, Pasqualini, Ahn, Cho, Yuan, Maoz, Vijaykumar, Choi, Deisseroth, Lauder, Mahadevan, Parker, "Phototactic guidance of a tissue-engineered soft-robotic ray", Science, 2016.
• Gazzola, Argentina, Mahadevan, "Gait and speed selection in slender inertial swimmers", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2015.
• Gazzola, Tchieu, Alexeev, de Brauer, Koumoutsakos, "Learning to school in the presence of hydrodynamic interactions", Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 2015.
• Gazzola, Argentina, Mahadevan, "Scaling macroscopic aquatic locomotion", Nature Physics, 2014.
• Gazzola, Hejazialhosseini, Koumoutsakos, "Reinforcement learning and wavelet adapted vortex methods for simulations of self-propelled swimmers", SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing, 2014.
• van Rees, Gazzola, Koumoutsakos, "Optimal shapes for anguilliform swimmers at intermediate Reynolds numbers", Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 2013.
• Gazzola, van Rees, Koumoutsakos, "C-start: optimal start of larval fish", Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 2012.
• Gazzola, Chatelain, van Rees, Koumoutsakos, "Simulations of single and multiple swimmers with non-divergence free deforming geometries", Journal of Computational Physics, 2011.

Other Scholarly Activities

• Paper2Tree Fall Event 2018
• Initiated and funded large scale outreach Paper2Tree project, involving Champaign and Urbana municipalities, school and park districts (2017)

Honors

• NSF CAREER Award (2019)
• Cover of Journal of Fluid Mechanics (2019)
• Cover of Advanced Functional Materials (2018)
• Blue Waters Professorship (2016)
• Cover of Science (2016)
• Advanced Swiss National Science Foundation Fellowship (2015)
• Le Prix La Recherche (2015)
• Cover of Nature Physics (2014)
• Swiss National Science Foundation Fellowship (2013)
• ETH Medal Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis (2013)
• Cover of Journal of Fluid Mechanics (2013)
• Cover of Journal of Fluid Mechanics (2012)

Teaching Honors

• UIUC Teacher Ranked as Excellent by Students - Fall 2018
• UIUC Teacher Ranked as Excellent by Students - Spring 2017
• UIUC Teacher Ranked as Excellent by Students - Fall 2016

Improvement Activities

• Collins Scholars, 2016-2017

Courses Taught

• ME 310 - Fundamentals of Fluid Dynamics
• ME 447 - Comp Design & Dyn of Soft Syst
• ME 498 - Comp modeling & optimization
• TAM 539 - Fluid Mechanics Seminar