Curriculum Vitae

Dr Francesco Turci

HH Wills Physics Laboratory
Tyndall Avenue
Bristol, BS8 1TL
United Kingdom

Email : f.turci@bristol.ac.uk
Homepage : http://francescoturci.net
Birth : 28 May 1985 in Forlì, Italy.

Research

  • July 2012 – July 2014
    Postdoctoral Fellow in the Theory of Soft Condensed Matter Group, Université du Luxembourg.
    Topic: Growth kinetics of solid-liquid interfaces.
    with Tanja Schilling
  • October 2009 – July 2012
    PhD Thesis in Physics in the Laboratoire Charles Coulomb – UMR CNRS et Université Montpellier 2.
    Topic : Transport Models with Constrained Dynamics: Heterogeneous Flow and Intermittency.
  • with Estelle Pitard

  • December 2008 – July 2009
    Research project at the Physics of the City Laboratory, Physics Department, Bologna University.
    Topic : Statistical properties of a dynamic process on networks. Monte Carlo modeling.
  • Supervisors : A. Bazzani, G. Turchetti.

  • January – September 2007 Research project in the frame of the CoChiSe (Cell-on-Chip bioSensor) european programme at ARCES, Bologna University.
    Topic : Modelisation of evaporative fluxes for the control of micro-fluidic devices. Experiments and simulations.Supervisors: G. Servizi, D. Gazzola.

Teaching

Teaching assistant:

  • 2014-today: In Bristol, I have taught Soft Matter, Statistical Physics and Scientific Computing to bachelor and master’s students in the School of Physics and tutored students in Foundational courses.
  • 2012: During my post-doc in Luxembourg, I taught (in English and French) Electrodynamics, for two months, whilst also planning, organising and evaluating exams.
  • 2009-2012: During my PhD studies, I was teaching assistant in Calculus, Mechanics and Newtonian dynamics for first year Bachelor students in Physics, Geophysics and Chemistry. In total, I taught (in
  • French) three modules of 64 hours each.

Student supervision

  • 2019-present: Co-supervisor of 2 PhD students.
  • 2014-2018: Supervision and co-supervision of 10 Master students; co-supervision of 5 PhD students. Currently official second supervisor of two PhD students in glassy physics and biological neural networks.
  • 2012-2014: Co-supervision of 2 Master and 2 PhD students.

Education

  • June 2012 – Université Montpellier 2 (France).
    Ph.D. thesis Transport Models with Constrained Dynamics: Heterogeneous Flow and Intermittency. Supervisor: E. Pitard.
    Jury: C. Appert-Rolland, S. Ciliberto, N. Kern, K. Mallick, A. Parmeggiani, M. Sellitto, C. Vanderzande.
  • June 2009 – Bologna University Alma Mater Studiorum (Italy).
    Master Degree in Applied Physics: 110/110 cum laude.
  • October 2007 – Bologna University Alma Mater Studiorum (Italy).
    First Degree in Physics: 110/110 cum laude.
  • 2006 – oboe diploma at G. Frescobaldi Conservatory of Music, Ferrara (Italy). Mark: 9/10.
  • July 2004 – Scientific Highschool Fulcieri Paulucci de’ Calboli in Forlì (Italy).
    Maturità Scientifica : 100/100.

Publications

See full list here.

Posters, Talks, Workshops & Schools

  • Stuttgart (Germany), June 2021. “Dimensionality and effective forces in active phase separation”. Invited Seminar – online.
  • Cambridge (UK), January 2020. “A dynamical transition in oscillating crystals”. Invited Seminar.
  • Montpellier (France), December 2019. A dynamical transition in oscillating crystals. Invited Seminar.
  • Luxembourg, November 2019. “Local structure and configurational entropy in liquids”. Invited Seminar.
  • Edinburgh (UK), April 2019. Interdisciplinary Topics in Non-Equilbrium Physics. “Structural dynamical correlations and rigid response.” Invited Talk.
  • Paris (France). December 2018. “Transition viteruse: signatures dynamiques et structurelles.” Invited Seminar.
  • Naples (Italy), July 2018. “The framework of structural-dynamical transitions in glass-forming systems”. Invited Seminar.
  • Montpellier (France), July 2018. “The framework of structural-dynamical transitions in glass-forming systems”. Invited Seminar.
  • Bristol (UK), June 2018. Unifying Concepts of Glass Physics. “Dynamical transitions and rigidity”. Talk.
  • Amsterdam (Netherlands), April 2018. “The framework of structural-dynamical transitions in glass-forming systems”. Invited Seminar.
  • Bruxelles (Belgium), November 2017. “Insights on the structural-dynamical coupling of frustrated systems: α large deviations approach”. Invited Seminar.
  • Edinburgh (UK), September 2017, Thermodynamics 2017. “Glasses and metastability: large deviations of dynamical observables in experiments and simlations”. Talk.
  • Wisla (Poland), July 2017, 8th IDMRCS. “Controlling frustration in glass forming liquids ”.Invited Talk.
  • London (UK), May 2017, Stat. Phys. of Complex, Glassy and Non-Equilibrium Systems@KCL. “Understanding phase transitions in trajectory space: theory and experiments on glass formers”. Talk.
  • Bath (UK), May 2017, Physics Department. Theory Group Seminar. “Binary Crystals and Kinetic Traps”. Invited seminar.
  • Utrecht (Netherlands), January 2017, Institute for Theoretical Physics. “Understanding phase transitions in trajectory space: theory and experiments on glass formers”. Invited Seminar.
  • Amsterdam (Netherlands), January 2017. Van’t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences. “Phase transitions in trajectory space: the emergence of rigidity”. Invited Seminar.
  • Paris (France), November 2016. LPTMC (UPMC). “Large deviations and dynamical transitions in glass formers“. Invited Seminar.
  • Mainz (Germany), November 2016. Theory and Simulation Group. “Releasing frustration for better relaxation”. Invited Seminar.
  • Durham (UK), November 2016. Soft-Matter Group. “Phase transitions in trajectory space: the emergence oφ rigidity”. Invited Seminar.
  • Sheffield (UK), July 2016, NESC’16: Adv. in Theory and Simulation of non-equilibrium systems. “Non-Equilibrium Phase Transition in an Atomistic Glassformer: the Connection to Thermodynamics”. Talk.
  • London (UK), July 2016, CONES 2016: Conference on Non-Equilibrium Systems. “Non-Equilibrium Phase Transition in an Atomistic Glassformer: the Connection to Thermodynamics”. Talk.
  • Mainz (Germany), July 2015, CECAM Workshop. Role of Structure in Dynamical Arrest. “Evidence for a Second Order Phase Transition to an Ideal Glass from Trajectory Sampling”. Invited Talk.
  • Bristol (UK), May 2014, HH Wills Physics Laboratory. “Non-equilibrium: three (not so) easy pieces”. Invited Talk.
  • Marseille (France), December 2013, Centre de Physique Théorique. “Exclusion transport processes with constrained dynamics”.Invited Talk.
  • Trieste (Italy), March 2013, MECO38. Best Poster Award.
  • Edinburgh (UK), December 2011, Noneq. Physics and Asymmetric Exclusion Processes. Invited Talk.
  • Cargèse (France), April 2010. Jamming and Rheology. Talk.

Languages

Fluent English, Fluent French, Elementary Turkish, Italian mother-tongue.

IT Skills

  • Certificates : French C2i1, C2i2e, Coursera Machine Learning, Andrew Ng, Stanford University (2020).
  • Development : C/C++, Python, R, Mathematica, Matlab/Octave. Elements of Fortran, Tcl/Tk, Java.
  • Simulation and data analysis: LAMMPS, ESPResSo Molecular Dynamics, VMD, Comsol Multiphysics, Matplotlib, Gnuplot, Grace, DataGraph.
  • Image processing : Gimp, Pixelmator, Inkscape, OmniGraffle, VectorDesigner, Matlab.

Referee Activity

I regular review scientific articles for journals in the areas of nonequilibrium statistical mechanics and disordered condensed-matter systems. The main journals and institutions for which I have acted as a referee are:

  • Nature Publishing Group: Nature Physics
  • American Physical Society Journals: Physical Review Letters, Physical Review X, Physical Review Materials, Physical Review E, Physical Review B
  • AIP Publishing: Journal of Chemical Physics
  • Royal Society of Chemistry: Soft Matter
  • IOP Publishing: Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment, Journal of Physics: Condensed
  • Matter
  • French National Research Agency (ANR) (evaluation of research grants)

Last updated: August, 2021