Salvatore Torquato

Prof Torquato in his office.

Salvatore Torquato is an American theoretical scientist born in Falerna, Italy. His research work has impacted a variety of fields, including physics,[1] chemistry, applied and pure mathematics, materials science, engineering, and biological physics. He is Professor of Chemistry and a Member of the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials at Princeton University. He has been a Senior Faculty Fellow in the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science, an enterprise dedicated to exploring frontiers across the theoretical natural sciences. He is also an Associated Faculty Member in three departments or programs at Princeton University: Physics, Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics, and Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering. On multiple occasions, he was a Member of the School of Mathematics as well as the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey.[2][3]

Research Accomplishments

Torquato's research work is centered in statistical mechanics and soft condensed matter theory. A common theme of his research is the search for unifying and rigorous principles to elucidate a broad range of physical and biological phenomena.

Torquato has made fundamental contributions to our understanding of the randomness of condensed phases of matter through the identification of sensitive order metrics. He is one of the world's experts on packing problems, including pioneering the notion of the "maximally random jammed" state of particle packings,[4][5] identifying a Kepler-like conjecture for the densest packings of nonspherical particles,[6] and providing strong theoretical evidence that the densest sphere packings in high dimensions (a problem of importance in digital communications) are counterintuitively disordered, not ordered as in our three-dimensional world.[7] He has devised the premier algorithm to reconstruct microstructures of random media.[8] Torquato formulated the first comprehensive cellular automaton model of cancer growth.[9] He has made seminal contributions to the study of random heterogeneous materials, including writing the highly acclaimed treatise on this subject called "Random Heterogeneous Materials." [10] He is one of the world's authorities on "materials by design" using optimization techniques,[11][12] including "inverse" statistical mechanics. More recently he introduced a new exotic state of matter called "disordered hyperuniformity",[13] which is intermediate between a crystal and liquid. These states of matter are endowed with novel physical properties.[14][15] [16]

Currently, his published work has been cited over 24,000 times and his h-index is 86 according to his Google Scholar page.[17]

Honors and Awards

Torquato is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS),[18] Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) [19] and Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).[20] He has been the recipient of the 2009 APS David Adler Lectureship Award in Material Physics,[21] SIAM Ralph E. Kleinman Prize,[22] Society of Engineering Science William Prager Medal [23] and ASME Richards Memorial Award.[24] He was a Guggenheim Fellow [25] and was thrice a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study. He recently received a Simons Foundation Fellowship in Theoretical Physics.[26]

References

  1. https://simonsfoundation.org/funding/funding-opportunities/mathematics-physical-sciences/simons-fellow-program/simons-fellows-awardees-theoretical-physics
  2. https://www.princeton.edu/chemistry/faculty/profiles/torquato/
  3. http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/prizerecipient.cfm?first_nm=Salvatore&last_nm=Torquato&year=2009
  4. Torquato, S.; Truskett, T. M.; Debenedetti, P. G. (2000). "Is Random Close Packing of Spheres Well Defined?". Physical Review Letters. 84: 2064. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.84.2064.
  5. Donev, A.; Cisse, I.; Sachs, D.; Variano, E. A.; Stillinger, F. H.; Connelly, R.; Torquato, S.; Chaikin, P. M. (2004). "Improving the Density of Jammed Disordered Packings using Ellipsoids". Science. 303 (5660): 990–993. doi:10.1126/science.1093010. PMID 14963324.
  6. Torquato, S.; Jiao, Y. (2009). "Dense Packings of the Platonic and Archimedean Solids". Nature. 460 (7257): 876–9. doi:10.1038/nature08239. PMID 19675649.
  7. Torquato, S.; Stillinger, F. H. (2006). "New Conjectural Lower Bounds on the Optimal Density of Sphere Packings". Experimental Mathematics. 15: 307. doi:10.1080/10586458.2006.10128964.
  8. Yeong, C. L. Y.; Torquato, S. (1998). "Reconstructing Random Media". Physical Review E. 57: 495. doi:10.1103/physreve.57.495.
  9. Kansal, A. R.; Torquato, S.; Harsh, G. R.; Chiocca, E. A.; Deisboeck, T. S. (2000). "Simulated Brain Tumor Growth using a Three-Dimensional Cellular Automaton". Journal of Theoretical Biology. 203: 367. doi:10.1006/jtbi.2000.2000.
  10. Torquato, S. (2002). Random Heterogeneous Materials: Microstructure and Macroscopic Properties. New-York: Springer-Verlag.
  11. Sigmund, O.; Torquato, S. (1997). "Design of Materials with Extreme Thermal Expansion using a Three-Phase Topology Optimization Method". Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids. 45: 1037. Bibcode:1997JMPSo..45.1037S. doi:10.1016/S0022-5096(96)00114-7.
  12. Torquato, S. (2009). "Inverse Optimization Techniques for Targeted Self-Assembly". Soft Matter. 5: 1157. doi:10.1039/b814211b.
  13. Torquato, S.; Stillinger, F. H. (2003). "Local Density Fluctualtions, Hyperuniform Systems, and Order Metrics". Physical Review E. 68: 041113. doi:10.1103/physreve.68.069901.
  14. Florescu, M.; Torquato, S.; Steinhardt, P. J. (2009). "Designer Disordered Materials with Large, Complete Photonic Band Gaps". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 106 (49): 20658. doi:10.1073/pnas.0907744106.
  15. Jiao, Y.; Lau, T.; Haztzikirou, H.; Meyer-Hermann, M.; Corbo, J. C.; Torquato, S. (2014). "Avian Photoreceptor Patterns Represent a Disordered Hyperuniform Solution to a Multiscale Packing Problem". Physical Review E. 89: 022721. doi:10.1103/physreve.89.022721.
  16. Torquato, S.; Zhang, G.; Stillinger, F. H. (2015). "Ensemble Theory for Stealthy Hyperuniform Disordered Ground States". Physical Review X. 5: 021020. doi:10.1103/physrevx.5.021020.
  17. https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=D6h2cTYAAAAJ
  18. http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/fellowships/
  19. http://fellows.siam.org/
  20. https://www.asme.org/about-asme/get-involved/honors-awards/fellows
  21. "2009 David Adler Lectureship Award in the Field of Materials Physics Recipient". American Physical Society. Retrieved 2015-02-26.
  22. https://www.siam.org/prizes/sponsored/kleinman.php
  23. https://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S07/42/72E20/index.xml
  24. https://www.asme.org/about-asme/participate/honors-awards/achievement-awards/charles-russ-richards-memorial-award
  25. http://www.gf.org/fellows/all/
  26. http://www.simonsfoundation.org/funding/funding-opportunities/mathematics-physical-sciences/simons-fellow-program/simons-fellows-awardees-theoretical-physics/2012-simons-fellows-awardees-theoretical-physics/

Publications

External links

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