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CFTC: Nuno Araújo won an FCT Principal Investigator contract to work at CFTC

The Center for Theoretical and Computational Physics (CFTC) is pleased to announce that the application of Nuno Araújo (NA) to an FCT Principal Investigator award, with the project “Computer simulations of colloidal self-organization: from nonequilibrium to relaxation towards equilibrium” was successful, obtaining the highest possible classification (9).

Core themes, in computational soft matter (CSM), include surface properties of complex fluids and self-assembly of surface patterned colloids.

NA is an outstanding young scientist, with an impressive track record, who adds an extra dimension to the research profile of CFTC, to which he has already contributed significantly. NA is an expert in particle-based computer simulation techniques, one pillar of CFTC’s strategic project.

After 3 years as a postdoc, at ETH Zurich, he became a senior researcher (Oberassistent). He published ca. 30 articles, 1 PNAS, 6 PRLs with editor suggestions, covers of PRL, and highlights ( Nature, Science, Scientific American, Physics World). He has hundreds of citations and h=9.

Recently, he focused on non-equilibrium phenomena in soft matter. He pioneered the study of the kinetics of adsorption of colloids with directional interactions and found novel non-equilibrium patterns. NA has both the theoretical expertise and the numerical skills to become a leader in this field. He leads 2 tasks “Self-assembly of Lisbon patchy colloids at (patterned) surfaces: A stochastic approach” and “Self-assembly of Lisbon patchy colloids at (patterned) surfaces: A detailed MD description” of CFTC’s project of excellence EXCL/FIS-NAN/0083/2012.

NA is in the team of NASA’s project “Kinetic of electric field-driven phase transitions in polarized colloids”, of which Prof. Telo da Gama is Co-PI.

NA has collaborations with the US, Germany, Brazil, Italy, and Colombia, important for CFTC.

He co-supervises 5 PhD and 4 MSc students and has supervised 3 MSc and 10 BSc thesis. He lectured at Summer Schools and teaches Introduction to Computational Physics and Computational Statistical Physics at ETH, since 2009.