Professor Matthieu Wyart | |
|---|---|
 Matthieu Wyart in 2021 | |
| Born | 1978 (age 45–46) |
| Citizenship | France |
| Education | Physics, mathematics, economics |
| Alma mater | École Polytechnique École normale supérieure Saclay Nuclear Research Centre |
| Awards | 2015 Simons Investigator Award 2011 Sloan Fellowship |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Soft condensed-matter Glass transition Granular matter Deep learning Biophysics Neuroscience Econophysics |
| Institutions | EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) |
| Thesis | On the rigidity of amorphous solids. Price fluctuations, Conventions and Microstructure of Financial Markets |
| Doctoral advisor | Jean-Philippe Bouchaud |
| Website | www |
Matthieu Wyart (born 1978 in Paris, France) is a French physicist. He is a professor of physics at EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) and the head of the Physics of Complex Systems Laboratory.[1][2]
Wyart studied physics, mathematics and economics at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris and obtained a degree with honors in physics in 2001. In 2002, he received a diploma in Advanced Studies in theoretical physics with highest honors from the École normale supérieure in Paris. He then joined Jean-Philippe Bouchaud and Marc Mézard at the Service de Physique de l'Etat Condensé (SPEC) at Saclay Nuclear Research Centre (CEA Saclay) in Paris as a doctoral student.[3] In 2006, he gained a PhD in theoretical physics and finance for a thesis on electronic markets titled On the rigidity of amorphous solids. Price fluctuations, Conventions and Microstructure of Financial Markets.[4]
In 2005, he became an analyst in the research department of Capital Fund Management.[5] Between 2005 and 2008 he was George Carrier Fellow at Harvard University's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.[6] He then joined Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Farm Campus as a research specialist.[7] Starting in 2009, he was a visiting research specialist at the Lewis-Sigler Institute at Princeton University.[8] He then joined New York University first as Assistant Professor in 2010 and was promoted to an associate professor position in 2014.[2][9]
Since July 2015, he has been Associate Professor of Theoretical Physics in the School of Basic Sciences at EPFL.[1][2] He was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2021.[10]
Wyart’s research encompassed field such as the architecture of allosteric materials,[11] the theory of deep learning,[12] the elasticity and mechanical stability in disordered solids,[13] the granular and suspension flows,[13] the glass and rigidity transitions,[14] the marginal stability at random close packing and other glasses,[15] and the yielding transition and elasto-plasticity.[16]
In particular, some of his recent research is focused on the classification of the elementary excitations controlling the linear and the plastic response in amorphous materials.[17] He has discovered that some of these excitations are marginally stable in the solid phase.[18] This marginality fixes key aspects of structures, and suggest that the density of excitations presents a pseudo-gap. These concepts are important to understand low-temperature properties of glasses,[19] the rheology of dense granular and suspension flows,[20] the elasticity close to the jamming transition,[21] the production transition in foams or metallic glass,[17] and more broadly glassy systems with enough long-range interactions.[22]
Wyart is the recipient of the 2015 Simons Investigator Award by the Simons Foundation,[23] Chaire Joliot (visiting professor) by the Ecole de Physique et Chimie in Paris in 2013,[24] the 2011 Sloan Fellowship,[9] and the 2005 G. Carrier Fellowship.[24]
Wyart is the son of Françoise Brochard-Wyart and Pierre-Gilles de Gennes.[25] He is married to Ksenia Tatarchenko and has two children.[26]
