People

Nicholas Fantuzzi is Associate Professor of Structural Mechanics. MSc in Civil Engineering and PhD in Structural Engineering and Hydraulics from University of Bologna. He holds the Italian National Academic Qualification as Full Professor in Mechanics of Solids and Structures.

His research interests are mechanics of solids and structures, fracture mechanics, computational mechanics applied to composite materials and structures.

He has been visiting professor at Tsinghua University, City University of Hong Kong, Chongqing University and University of Rijeka. Winner of 3 international awards. Author of more than 200 international peer reviewed journal papers and more than 150 abstracts in national and international conferences.

Co-Editor in Chief of “Composite Structures” (Elsevier).

Paola Fabbri (Bologna (I), 1974) is associate professor of Materials Science and Technology at DICAM of the University of Bologna since 2014. From 2021 she is the Rector's delegate for career planning and job placement, and president of the Almae Matris Alumni Association. She is an expert in the field of polymeric materials, composites and bioplastics. Her activities primarily concern the selection of plastics for specific industrial sectors, including advanced fields, the development or modification of new polymeric materials by combining chemical and technological routes, to understand their structure-properties correlations. One of her main interests concerns the sustainability of the plastic sector; she conjugates the development of new materials with the valorization of wastes and the utilization of renewable carbon. She is highly involved in national and international research programs, and actively interacts with Companies and industrial Associations, by acting as scientific advisor and supporting technology transfer. Author of >100 scientific publications, >400 presentations at conferences, 4 patents and several book-chapters.

Fulbrighter University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, US, May-September 2025.

Deputy Chair of the RILEM Technical Committee on 'Mechanical Characterization of bamboo'

Member of the tecnichnical Committee for National Standard UNI/CT 022/GL 01 Structural wood

Habilitation as Associate Professor in the call 2012.

March 2011 Assistant Professor at DICAM Department, University of Bologna 

2010 - 2011 Post Doc Reasearcher at DICAM Department, University of Bologna, (Damage models for historical masonry structures subjected to environmental actions) 

2007 - 2010 Post Doc, University of Bologna. 

2005 Visiting Post-Doc at Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geoscience, TU Delft, Delft, Paesi Bassi. 

2001-2004 PhD in Mechanics of Structures, University of Bologna. 

2002-2003 Visiting scholar at Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA. 

2001 Habilitation as engineer

2000 Degree in Civil Engineering (Structures), University of Bologna (100/100).

Associate professor since 2006, she carries out her research on optimization and regularization methods for inverse problems. Development of sophisticated multi-penalty regularization techniques for linear ill-posed inverse problems, with particular focus on uniform multipenalty approaches and automatic parameter selection algorithms. Recent work includes scaled gradient projection methods and pixel-wise multi-penalty approaches for various applications including image restoration and geophysical parameter estimation.

My research field is the mechanical behavior of composite materials, in particular under impact and fatigue loading, aimed to the design of lightweight vehicles. (e.g. Emilia 4, winner of the America Solar Challenge 2018 and of the European Solar Challenge 2021  and Emilia 5 winner of the South African Solar Challenge 2024, and the dinghy RedWave, winner of the Monaco Energy Boat Challenge 2025, Sealab class).

A second interest is the "impossible design" i.e. design fo additive manufacturing.

In the World's Top 2% Scientists 2020 (Stanford University).

Luca Vincenzo Ballestra holds a five-year single-cycle degree (Laurea) in Aerospace Engineering from the Politecnico University of Milan and a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Milan. Since January 2016, he has been serving as an Associate Professor of Mathematics for Economics at the Rimini Campus of the University of Bologna, within the Department of Statistical Sciences. At Rimini, he teaches a range of undergraduate and graduate courses in Financial and Actuarial Mathematics. His primary research interests lie in the development of numerical methods for solving partial differential equations, with a particular focus on their applications in finance and economics. He has authored and co-authored numerous research articles published in leading Computational Mathematics journals, covering topics such as finite difference, finite element, and meshless methods.

Postdoctoral researcher in computational solid mechanics at the Università di Bologna. He holds a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, where he developed global–local finite element strategies for the postbuckling analysis of composite shell structures. His current work focuses on integrating high-fidelity finite element modelling with machine learning to develop efficient tools for the analysis of composite structures. His research interests include shell and plate theories, meshless and finite element methods, buckling of thin-walled structures, and machine-learning approaches for structural analysis.

Nicola Zavatta graduated in Aerospace Engineering in 2015 at the University of Bologna.
He got a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and a Master Degree in Mathematics at the University of Bologna.
He is currently a Research Fellow at the DICAM Department.
His research interests include fatigue damage models in composite materials and adhesively bonded joints, minimization problems for energy functionals and computational methods for the solution of variational problems.
He has authored or co-authored several publications in peer-reviewed journals.

Dr. Ivan Gallo is an applied mathematician working on stochastic control and nonlinear PDEs, with a focus on numerical methods and Monte Carlo simulation. His research addresses quantitative risk modeling in finance and insurance, including credit risk, value adjustments (XVA), and derivative pricing under uncertainty. His recent work includes energy and climate-related financial modeling, actuarial mathematics, and portfolio optimization under model ambiguity.

Luca Lenzi is a postdoctoral researcher in Materials Science and Technology at the University of Bologna. He received his PhD in Materials Engineering from the University of Bologna. His research interests include polymer science and engineering, bio-based polymers and elastomers, sustainable additives, and recyclable polymer systems. His activity focuses on the development of materials from renewable feedstocks, the study of structure-property relationships, and the design of recyclable and sustainable polymers and additives. He collaborates on national and international research projects and contributes to scientific dissemination through peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations.

Morteza Saadatmorad has been recognized as an Exceptionally Talented Researcher with Iran’s National Elites Foundation (INEF). He received his Ph.D. from Babol Noshirvani University of Technology, and his doctoral thesis was selected as the best thesis of the year in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. In the same year, his Ph.D. thesis was nominated for the best doctoral thesis in the country (Iran) by the Iranian Acoustics and Vibration Association. He is an expert in wavelet transform and structural health monitoring of laminated composite structures, using optimization and machine learning. In 2025, he won a Ph.D. scholarship funded by Ministero dell'Università e della Ricerca (MUR), the Italian Ministry of University and Research, conducted by the Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental, and Materials FIS2 under the supervision of Prof. Nicholas Fantuzzi for multi-objective optimization of sustainable composite structures via machine learning techniques.

PhD candidate in Civil Engineering at the University of Bologna. I completed an MSc in Civil Engineering (Structures and Geotechnics) at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP, Brazil), where I also obtained postgraduate specializations in Steel Structures and Reinforced Concrete Design. My master's research and subsequent studies focused on improving GBT-based formulations for restrained cold-formed steel members, with results that were later recognized as a reference for lateral-distortional behaviour in the Brazilian standard for steel structures NBR 8800:2024.  Author and co-author of peer-reviewed articles published in leading international journals, including Thin-Walled Structures and the Journal of Constructional Steel Research (Elsevier), contributing to the advancement of the theoretical and computational framework of the Generalised Beam Theory (GBT).  In addition to my academic background, I have solid professional experience in structural design and analysis, having managed projects involving both reinforced concrete and steel structures. I am proficient in Python, SAP2000, ANSYS, LISA FEA, and fluent in English, Portuguese, and Italian.  My current research interests include GBT-based analysis, structural instability, composite materials, and numerical simulations.

I completed a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Engineering & Technology (UET), Lahore in 2015, and an MSc in Manufacturing Engineering from UET in 2020, supported by a PEEF merit-based scholarship from the Government of Punjab. My master’s research focused on machining deep microchannels in D2 steel using wire-EDM, which I later published in Micromachines. Since 2015, I have worked across mechanical engineering and engineering management, with experience in academia (Mechanical and Automotive Engineering), industry (Project Management), and government institutions (equipment procurement and inspection). My research interests include materials science, non-conventional manufacturing, and philosophy.

Laura Martellosio obtained her Master degree in Organic Chemistry from the University of Bologna in 2024 with top marks. She carried out her experimental thesis within the “Glueless” project at SACMI SC (Imola), focusing on ceramic–polymer multilayer systems and surface treatments to improve adhesion without fossil-based adhesives.

She then held a research fellowship at the University of Bologna, working on solvent-free bio-plasticizers and multifunctional bio-based polymeric materials for sustainable textiles.

She is currently a first-year PhD student in Materials Science and Technology at the University of Bologna under the supervision of Prof. Paola Fabbri. Her research focuses on the development and characterization of innovative bio-based thermosetting composites derived from vegetable waste. Her PhD project is part of FIS2 project “TOSSTO – Transdisciplinary design of sustainable composite structures for supporting decision-making and resilience of the society of the future.

Ana Pavlovic is a postdoctoral researcher at University of Bologna. Her research focuses on numerical modelling and finite element methods for structural and industrial design, with particular emphasis on advanced and composite materials.