Education

Ph.D in theoretical and applied mechanics, Università di Roma ‘La Sapienza’, 1997.
‘Laurea’ (fifth year degree) in Structural Engineering, Università di Roma ‘La Sapienza’.
High School in humanities.

Academic services

Since 2005, Associate Professor of `Mechanics of Solids' at the University of Florence (habilitation got in 2001).
Since a.y. 2010-2011, in charge of the course `Theoretical Mechanics' at the Scuola Normale Superiore at Pisa.
A.y. 2010-2011, in charge of the course `Mechanics of Solids' at the Gonzaga University in Florence.
A.y. 2009-2010, in charge of the course `Theoretical Mechanics of Complex Bodies' at the Scuola Normale Superiore at Pisa.
A.y. 2009-2010: member of two national committees for confirmation of associate professors after three years of appointment.
Visiting professor (September, 2010; May-June, 2009; September 2008) at the Polytechnic University of Madrid.
Visiting professor (October-December, 2009) at the University of Zürich.
Since 2008, coordinator (together with A. Mielke) of the research group in `Theoretical Mechanics' at the Center of Mathematical Research Ennio De Giorgi, Pisa.
Since 2008 member of the board of professors of the PhD program in `Non-Linear Dynamics and Complex Systems' of the University of Florence.
Since 2007 coordinator of the `Technical Commitee' of the School of Engineering in the University of Florence.
Visiting professor (February, April-May 2004) at the `Centre of Excellence for Advances Materials and Structures' of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
1997-2001, adjunct professor of `Mechanics of Solids' (Mechanical Engineering) at the University of Rome `La Sapienza'.
1999, lecturer at CISM, Udine.
1996, 2003, 2004, research associate at the University of Pisa, Department of Mathematics.

Research interests

Mechanics and thermodynamics of continua: foundations of the mechanics of complex bodies connecting events from nano to macroscopic level, construction of models for special classes of complex bodies (quasicrystals, ferroelectrics, polymeric fluids…), dynamics of complex fluids, discontinuity waves, evolution of point, line and surface defects, fracture mechanics, damage mechanics, plasticity.
Computational methods: extended finite elements for the mechanics of complex bodies, variational integrators.
Statistical mechanics: substructural stochastic behaviour in random materials.

Editorial Boards

Mathematical Methods in the Applied Sciences, Wiley, Communicating Editor since 2010 (MMAS).
Materials Sciences and Applications, Scientific Research, member of the Editorial Board since 2010 (MSA, an open access journal).
ISRN Engineering Mechanics, Hindawi, member of the Editorial Board since 2010 (ISRN, an open access journal)

Editorial activity for multi-authored books and special issues of journals

Guest editor with G. Capriz (Pisa) of the special issue ‘Multifield Theories’, Int. J. Solids Structures, Elsevier, vol 38, n° 6-7, 2001.
Guest editor with G. Capriz (Pisa) of the special issue ‘Describing bodies from nano- to macro-scales: models and methods’, Meccanica, Springer, vol. 40, n° 4-6, 2005.
Editor with G. Capriz (Pisa) of the book ‘Material substructures in complex bodies: from atomic level to continuum’, Elsevier, 2007.
Guest editor with G. Capriz (Pisa) and P. Giovine (Reggio Calabria) of the special issue, ‘Modelling granularity’, Computers & Mathematics, Elsevier, vol. 55, n° 2, 2008.
Editor with G. Capriz (Pisa) and P. Giovine (Reggio Calabria) of the book ‘Mathematical models of granular matter’, Lecture Notes in Mathematics Series, Springer Verlag, 2008.
Managing guest editor (co-editors G. Frosali and G. Modica, Firenze) of the special issue ‘Evolution Equations in Pure and Applied Sciences’, Physica D, Elsevier, in preparation, scheduled for 2010.
Guest editor of the Special Issue, ‘Numerical Simulations of Discontinuities in Mechanics’, Algorithms (MDPI), in print 2009.
Guest editor with M. Focardi of the special issue ‘Analytical and Geometrical Problems in Continuum Mechanics’, Discrete and Continuous Dynamical Systems - B , AIMS, in preparation, scheduled for 2011.
Guest editor of the book, ‘Letters from the Palazzetto. An excursion in the history of ideas in continuum mechanics’, Scuola Normale Superiore - Edizioni della Normale (distributed by Birkhäuser), in prepraration, 2011.

Societies

Member of the following scientific-technical societies:

AIMETA, Italian Association of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics
ISIMM, International Society for Interactions of Mechanics and Mathematics
EUROMECH, European Society of Mechanics
GNFM-INDAM, Italian National Group of Mathematical Physics
IASSAR (member of the board SC4)
Society for Natural Philosophy
ECCOMAS
Commission 1 of the UNI, Italian Institute of Standards

Service as reviewer

Reviewer (since 2005) of the research projects for the Italian-French University.
Reviewer for the following international journals: (1) Mathematical Review (58 published reviews), (2) Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A, (3) International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering, (4) Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical, (5) Journal of Mathematical Physics, (6) Rendiconti Lincei: Matematica e Applicazioni, (7) Journal of Geometry and Physics, (8) Il Nuovo Cimento B, (9) Physics Letters A, (10) Physica B, (11) Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, (12) Physica Status Solidi B, (13) International Journal of Solids and Structures, (14) Journal of Elasticity, (15) Applied Mathematical Modelling, (16) Mathematical Methods in the Applied Sciences, (17) International Journal of Fracture, (18) Bollettino Unione Matematica Italiana B, (19) ASCE Journal of Engineering Mechanics, (20) Computers and Structures, (21) Computers and Mathematics, (22) Meccanica, (23) International Journal of Mathematics and Mathematical Sciences, (24) Engineering Structures, (25) Mechanics of Structures and Machines (ceased), (26) ZAMM, (27) SIAM J. Math. Analysis, (28) Multiscale Modeling and Simulations, (29) Mechanics Research Communications (30) Communications in Nonlinear Sciences and Numerical Simulations, (31) Discr. Cont. Dyn. Systems - B, (32) Mech. Mat., (33) J. Mech. Mat. Struct.

Key-note lectures and organization of symposia

Plenary talk at STAMM-2010, Berlin, Germany, August 30th - September 2nd, 2010.
Plenary talk at CPEA-2010, Rackeve, 2010.
Key-note lecturer at 9th GAMM Seminar on Microstructures, Stuttgart, Germany, January 22-23, 2010.
Organizer with G. Fosali and G. Modica of the Symposium `Evolution Equations in Pure and Applied Sciences', Università di Firenze, April 2008.
Organizer of the Symposium `Mathematical Lectures', `Centro di Ricerche Matematiche Ennio De Giorgi' of the Scuola Normale Superiore at Pisa, Lizzanello, September 2007.
Organizer of the Intensive Course `Structures of the Mechanics of Complex Bodies' at the `Center of Mathematical Research E. De Giorgi' of the Scuola Normale Superiore at Pisa, October 2007.
Organizer with T. J. Pence and E. Vanden-Ejinden of the Symposium `Geometric and Stochastic Aspects of the Mechanics of Complex Bodies' within ICIAM-2007, Zürich, July 2007.
Organizer of a sub-session of the sector `Mathematical Physics' at the International Congress of Mathematicians ICM 2006, Madrid, June 2006.
Organizer of the symposium `Models of multi-scale phenomena in simple and complex bodies' within SIMAI-2006, Baia Samuele, May 2006.
Organizer with G. Capriz of the `Minisymposium Nanotechnologies: building up structures at the nano and meso-scales' within AIMETA 2005, Firenze, September 2005.
Key-note lecturer of a session at the `Symposium on Probabilistic Mechanics' within the Third MIT Conference on Computational Fluid and Solid Mechanics, Boston, June 2005.
Organizer with G. Capriz of the `Minisymposium on Multifield Theories' within AIMETA-2001, Taormina, September 2001.

Teaching activity abroad

Course on 'Gradient Plasticity' delivered at the Università Politecnica di Madrid, September, 2010.
Course on 'Fluid-dynamics' delivered at the University of Zürich, October-December, 2009.
Course on 'Evolutionary Phenomena in the Mechanics of Complex Bodies' delivered at the Università Politecnica di Madrid, May-June, 2009.
Course on 'Mechanics of Complex Bodies: Foundations and Perspectives' delivered at the Università Politecnica di Madrid, September 2008.
Lecturer in the advanced school `Random Material Microstructures' at the `Center of Excellence for Advances Materials and Structures' of the Polish Academy of Sciences, February 2004.
Lecturer in the CISM Course `Damage and fracture in disordered materials', invited by D. Krajcinovic and G. van Mier, 2000.
Lecturer in the Applied Mechanics Seminar - Summer at MIT, invited by R. Abeyaratne, June 1998.___________________________________________

Further seminar activity at

Università di Roma “Tor Vergata”, Department of Civil Engineering (Roma, 1994);
Arizona State University, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (Phoenix, 1995);
Università di Ferrara, Department of Engineering (Ferrara, 1997, 2007);
Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa, 1998, 2007);
Brown University, Division of Engineering (Providence, 1998);
Yale, Department of Mechanical Engineering (New Heaven, 1998);
MIT, Department of Mechanical Engineering (Boston, 1998);
Istituto per l’Elaborazione dell’Informazione, CNR(Pisa, 1999);
Università di Pisa, Department of Mathematics (Pisa, 1999, 2004);
Northwestern University, Department of Mechanical Engineering (Chicago, 2002);
Università Politecnica delle Marche, Department of Structural Engineering (Ancona, 2003, 2004);
Università di Firenze, Department of Civil Engineering (2003);
Budapest University of Technology, Department of Chemical Physics and Department of Mechanical Engineering (Budapest, 2003);
Université de Versailles et St Quentin en Yvelines, LEMA (Paris, 2003, 2006);
Ecole Polytechnique, (Paris, 2004, 2006);
IPPT, Polish Academy of Sciences, (Warsaw, 2004);
Università Politecnica delle Marche, Department of Mathematics (Ancona, 2004);
Università di Trento, Department of Mathematics (Trento, 2006).
Weierstrass Institute for Applied Analysis and Stochastics (Berlin, 2008)
Politecnico di Milano (Milano, 2008, 2009)
Università Politecnica di Madrid (Madrid, 2008)
Università di Brescia (Brescia, 2009)
Università di Bologna (Bologna, 2009)
Università del Salento (Lecce, 2010)

Students tutored for ‘Laurea’ thesis (5th year degree equivalent to Master) and PhD thesis

Luca Sabatini (PhD thesis, 2000, Università di Roma ‘La Sapienza’), Furio Lorenzo Stazi (‘Laurea’ thesis, 1999; PhD thesis, 2003, Università di Roma ‘La Sapienza’ – recipient of the ‘2004 ECCOMAS Prize’ for the best PhD thesis in Computational Mechanics), Gilberto Barone-Adesi (‘Laurea’ thesis, 2002, Università di Roma ‘La Sapienza’), Daniele Rosselli (‘Laurea’ thesis, 2003, Università di Roma ‘La Sapienza’), Erica Lauretti (‘Laurea’ thesis, 2006, Università di Roma ‘La Sapienza’, PhD thesis, 2007-2009, Université de Versailles et Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines), Carla Rigat Pons (Master thesis, 2006, UPC, Barcelona), Chiara Lelli (‘Laurea specialistica’ thesis, 2008, Università di Firenze, Ph.D. at ‘Politecnico di Milano’), Rossella Pignatelli (‘Laurea specialistica’ thesis, 2008, Università di Firenze, joint program with University of California at San Diego La Jolla, Ph.D. at ‘Politecnico di Milano’), Niccolò Tosi (Batchelor thesis, 2008, Università di Firenze), Camilla Baroncelli (‘Laurea specialistica’ thesis, 2008, Università di Firenze, joint program with Georgia Tech), Paolo Paoletti (PhD thesis, 2007-2009, Università di Firenze, joint program with Harvard University), Guido Franchetti (‘Laurea specialistica’ thesis, 2008, Università di Firenze), Marco Bacci (PhD thesis, 2009-2012, Università di Firenze), Francesco Paternò (Batchelor thesis, 2011, Università di Firenze).