DCL Seminar: Mattia Gazzola - Computational Design of Artificial Animals

Decision and Control Lecture Series

Coordinated Science Laboratory

 

“Computational Design of Artificial Animals”

 

Mattia Gazzola, Ph.D.

University of Illinois

 

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

CSL Auditorium (B02)

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Abstract:

We introduce an inverse design approach based on minimal theoretical modeling, direct numerical simulations and artificial intelligence for the investigation of animal locomotion. We will mostly focus on aquatic and terrestrial limbless creatures and discuss the identification of optimal swimming gaits and morphologies, as well as the design of the first cyborg ray ever built.

 

Bio:

Mattia Gazzola is a Blue Waters assistant professor in the Mechanical Science and Engineering Department at UIUC and an affiliate faculty at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). Previously he was a postdoc at Harvard (SEAS), and earned his PhD from ETH Zurich. Mattia's work primarily focuses on the computational and theoretical characterization of biological propulsion. His work has been featured on the cover of several scientific magazines (Science, Nature Physics, Journal of Fluid Mechanics) and awarded with the Early and Advanced Swiss National Science Foundation postdoctoral grants, as well as with the ETH Medal in 2013.