Education

Ph.D. in Mathematics | March 31, 1995
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, U.S.A.
Advisor: James Serrin

Master in Mathematical Sciences | June 30, 1993
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, U.S.A.
Advisor: James Serrin

Laurea in Mathematics | June 27, 1990
University of Modena, Modena, Italy
Advisor: Patrizia Pucci
Magna Cum Laude

Academic Positions

Full Professor | July 1, 2005 – PRESENT
Department of Mathematical Sciences
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA

Associate Professor with Tenure | September 1, 2002 – June 30, 2005
Department of Mathematical Sciences
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA

January 2002 won a competition for full-professor in Analysis in Italy.

Associate Professor | November 1, 1998 – August 31, 2002
Department of Advanced Sciences and Technologies
University of Piemonte Orientale, Alessandria, Italy

Assistant Professor | July 1, 1995 – October 31, 1998  
Department of Mathematics
University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy

Post Doctoral Associate | January 1997 – April 1997
Center for Nonlinear Analysis
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA


Administrative Positions
Associate Director of the Center for Nonlinear Analysis | January 1, 2011 – 2017 
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA

Awards

Scholarship for undergraduate students
National Council of Research, 1990

Scholarship to study abroad
National Institute of High Mathematics F. Severi, 1990 (renewed for three years)

Scholarship to study abroad
National Council of Research, 1995

Selected communication for young mathematicians under 33 at the XVI meeting
of the Italian Mathematical Society
Naples, September 13 – 18, 1999

Premio Giuseppe Bartolozzi of the Italian Mathematical Society for best Italian
mathematician under 34, 2001

Julius Ashkin Teaching Award of the Mellon College of Science, for unusual devotion and effectiveness in teaching undergraduate students
Carnegie Mellon University, 2013

Richard Moore Award of the Mellon College of Sciences for substantial and sustained contributions to the educational mission of the college, Carnegie Mellon University, 2019.

Recent Talks

  • Plenary Speaker at the Conference: Calculus of Variations and applications, An International Conference to celebrate Gianni Dal Maso's 65th Birthday, January 27-February 1, 2020, SISSA, Trieste.
  • Lecturer at the summer school SMI, July 5-16, 2021, Cortona, Italy.
  • Nonlinear Analysis Seminar Series, 05-14-2021, OIST, Japan.
  • The 49th pde seminar via Zoom, 01-13-2022, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China, 
  • Seminar, June 13, 2023, University of Pavia, Italy. 
Undergraduate students
  • Eric Baer, honors thesis, 2006;
  • Tarek Elgindi, undergraduate research, Summer 2008;
  • Timothy Li, undergraduate research, summer 2017
  • Michael Spoerl, honors thesis, 2018;
  • Laurie Jin (co-advised with W. Hrusa), honors thesis, 2018.
  • Taisuke Yasuda, undergraduate research, spring 2019;
  • Scott Harvey-Arnold, honors thesis, 2020; 
  • Andrew Chen, honors thesis, 2020;
  • Braden Yates, undergraduate research, Summer 2022;
  • Jiewen Hu, undergraduate research, Summer 2022.
  • Kevin You, undergraduate research, Summer 2022.
  • Thomas Lam, honors thesis, 2023;
  • Vlad, Oleksenko, honors thesis, 2023;
  • Khunpob Sereesuchart; honors thesis, 2023;
  • Grant Yu; honors thesis, 2023;
  • Francesca Yu, undergraduate research, Summer 2023.
  • Justin Sun; honors thesis, 2023;
  • Thomas Horstkamp, honors thesis, 2024.
  • Soren Dupont, undergraduate research, Summer 2024.
  • Nelitha Kulasiri, undergraduate research, Summer and Fall 2024.
  • Henry Siegel, undergraduate research, Summer and Fall 2024.
  • Michael Zhou, undergraduate research, Summer and Fall 2024.
  • Braden Yates, undergraduate research, Summer 2022;
  • Jiewen Hu, undergraduate research, Summer 2022.
  • Kevin You, undergraduate research, Summer 2022.

Ph.D. Students

Graca Carita 
(Ph.D. 2007, co-supervised with I. Fonseca; deceased)
Danut Arama 
(Ph.D. 2008, currently at Colegiul National, Costache Negri, Romania)
Bernardo Galvao Sousa 
(Ph.D. 2008, co-supervised
with I. Fonseca; currently at University of Toronto, Canada)
Daniel Spector 
( Ph.D. 2011, currently at National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan)
P. Piovano 
(Ph.D. 2012; co-supervised with I. Fonseca; currently at Polytechnic University of Milan, Italy)
Ryan Murray 
(Ph.D. 2016,  co-supervised with R. Pego, currently at NC State University,)
Matteo Rinaldi 
(Ph.D. 2017, co-supervised with I. Fonseca, currently at Spotify)
Giovanni Gravina,
(Ph.D. 2019,  currently at Loyola University)
Kerrek Stinson
(Ph.D. 2021,  currently at the University of Utah)
Wes Caldwell 
(Ph.D. 2025, co-supervised with I. Fonseca, currently at NIST)
Current
Francesco Cassandra (co-supervised with I. Fonseca)
Indulekha Madathil Sasi

Postdoctoral Fellows

Massimiliano Morini 
(2002 – 2004,  currently  at University of Parma, Italy)
Vincent Millot
(2005 – 2007, currently at Paris 7, France)
Marco Barchiesi
(2007 – 2009, currently at  University of Trieste, Italy)
Filippo Cagnetti 
(2008 – 2010, currently at  University of Sussex, England)
Milena Chermisi
(2008 – 2010, currently in industry)
Michael Goldman 
(2011, currently at University of Paris 7, France)
Timothy Blass
(2011-2014, currently in industry)
Gurgen Hayrapetyan
(2011-2014, currently in industry)
Marco Morandotti
(2011-2014, currently at Politecnico di Torino, Italy)
Xinyang Lu,
(2012-2015, currently Lakehead University, Canada)
Emanuel Indrei
(2013-2016, currently Purdue University)
Laurent Dietrich
(2015-2017, currently Toulouse University, France.)
Marco Carroccia
(2015-2018, currently Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa & University of Florence, Italy)
Riccardo Cristoferi
(2015-2018, currently at Heriot-Watt University, UK)
Peter Gladbach 
(2016-2017, currently at University of Leipzig, Germany)
Lei Wu 
(2015-2018, currently at Lehigh University)
Janusz Ginster
(2016-2018, currently at Humboldt University, Germany)
Ethan O'brien
(2017-2019, currently at University of Arizona)
Stephan Wojtowytsch
(2017-2019, currently at Princeton University)
Eric Baer
(2018-2019, currently at University of Chicago)
Sean McCurdy
(2019-2021, currently at National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan)
Adam Prosinski
(2019-2021, currently, private industry)
Leonard Kreutz
(2022-2023, currently, Technical University of Munich)
Michael Novack
(2023-2024, currently, Illinois Tech)
 Current

Recent Synergistic Activities

  • Co-Organizer of the workshop in honor of the 65th birthday of Irene Fonseca Variational challenges in materials science and imaging: recent advances and new perspectives, June 20-24, 2022, Technical University of Vienna, Austria.
  • Co-Organizer of the minisymposium Advances in variational methods and applications to materials and machine learning, July 11-13, 2022, SIAM Annual Meeting, Pittsburgh.