Dr. Alessandro F. Rotta Loria appointed at Northwestern

Just after finishing his Ph.D. at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), Alessandro F. Rotta Loria has been appointed Tenure Track Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northwestern University, in the United States of America. Alessandro will face this new challenge and opportunity resorting to his competences acquired at the Politecnico di Torino, via his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Building Engineering, and at the Laboratory of Soil Mechanics of the EPFL, via his Ph.D. in Mechanics, with the aim of addressing both fundamental and applied problems at the interface of geomechanics, structural mechanics and energy.

The research activities of Alessandro’s group at Northwestern will address the understanding of the multiphysical and multiscale interactions between the built environment and the subsurface. The ultimate goal of his research activities is to contribute to sustain human development with a limited impact on the environment, by providing competences, tools and new approaches for the analysis, design and construction of urban systems characterised by a shift of paradigm compared to the present ones.

When asked about the strategy he will employ to make an increasing impact in the scientific and engineering fields, Alessandro answers that it consists in “continuing to develop, via a multidisciplinary approach, a sound theoretical understanding and extensive experimental knowledge to characterize and solve the problems considered”. He addresses the roots and the growth of this approach within himself to his Ph.D. advisor, Professor Lyesse Laloui, “who is devoted to instil in his students the rationale, the beauty and the value of this perspective to scientific research, with the unique feature that it allows obtaining the full benefit of the actual behaviour of any subject matter”.

We wish him all the best for his future career!