Francesco Viola is Assistant Professor at Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI) and in his research combines numerics, experiments and theory to rationalize Fluid Dynamics phenomena. With his research group at GSSI, he’s developing a high-fidelity computational model of the human heart based on fluid-structure interaction (FSI), supported by an ERC Starting grant. The project aims at connecting different branches of Engineering and Physics with Medicine in order to test in-silico the outcome of cardiac pathologies and device implantation. Before joining GSSI, he received a M.Sc in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Pisa while he was student of the Sant’Anna School. Francesco holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), where he investigated instabilities manifesting in swirling wakes and nonlinear damping phenomena occurring in sloshing waves. Following his doctoral studies, he received a Marie Skłodowska-Curie individual fellowship to join the Physics of Fluids group at the University of Twente, where he specialized on cardiovascular Fluid Mechanics.
