Michele Simoncelli
Michele Simoncelli joined the Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics at Columbia University in January 2025. From fall 2021 to 2024, he held the Crone Research Fellowship in the Physics Department at the University of Cambridge. There, he worked on fundamental quantum theory and computational methods to describe the emergence of hybrid crystal-glass properties in materials with controlled degrees of atomistic disorder in, e.g., chemical composition, bond-network topology, or geometry. He received his PhD from EPFL (Switzerland) in 2021 under the supervision of Nicola Marzari, presenting in his thesis novel microscopic and mesoscopic theories of thermal transport in solids: the Wigner transport equation, generalizing the semiclassical Peierls-Boltzmann equation, and the viscous heat equations, generalizing Fourier's law. Prior to his PhD, he received a master's degree in Physics of Complex Systems from Politecnico di Torino (Italy), with a thesis discussing the statistical and molecular physics that determines the efficiency of capacitive devices used to produce drinkable water.
His scientific contributions have been honored with the Charles Haenny Prize for Physics (2025), the Swiss Physical Society Computational Physics Award (2023), the EPFL Doctorate Award (2022), and the Chorafas Award from the Weizmann Institute of Science (2020).
In his free time he enjoys endurance sports such as running, mountaineering, and cross-country skiing. He is also an avid reader, with a particular interest in psychology and philosophy.
