Maurizio Porfiri elected Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences
Institute Professor, Director of CUSP, and inaugural Director of NYU's Urban Institute joins EurASc Engineering Division
Maurizio Porfiri, Institute Professor at NYU Tandon School of Engineering, has been elected a Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences (EurASc), joining its Engineering Division.
Porfiri holds tenured appointments in the Departments of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Biomedical Engineering, serves as Interim Chair of the Department of Civil, Urban, and Environmental Engineering, directs the Center for Urban Science + Progress (CUSP), and is the inaugural Director of NYU's Urban Institute. He founded the Dynamical Systems Laboratory at NYU Tandon in 2006.
The EurASc is a non-profit non-governmental, independent organization of the most distinguished scholars and engineers – including Nobel Prize and Fields Medal laureates – performing forefront research and the development of advanced technologies, united by a commitment to promoting science and technology and their essential roles in fostering social and economic development.
"The questions I find most compelling are ones that require crossing borders, both disciplinary and geographic," said Porfiri. "Being recognized by the European Academy of Sciences, a community built on exactly that spirit, is particularly meaningful, and I look forward to contributing to its mission."
"Professor Porfiri has built a body of work that is genuinely distinct, using the mathematics of dynamical systems to illuminate everything from how fish collectively move to what makes cities work for the people who live in them," said Juan de Pablo, NYU’s Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Executive Vice President for Global Science and Technology and the Executive Dean of NYU Tandon. "His election to the European Academy of Sciences is a recognition of that scholarship, and of the deep European partnerships he has cultivated throughout his career, partnerships that embody Tandon's commitment to research without borders."
Porfiri's research spans the theory and application of dynamical systems, with much of his work emerging from collaborations with European institutions. With colleagues in Italy, his team used hydrodynamic simulations to reveal how the skeletal architecture of the deep-sea Venus flower basket sponge could inform more resilient designs for buildings and aircraft. That work earned the 2024 Aspen Institute Italia Award for U.S.-Italian scientific collaboration.
With colleagues at the University of Naples and Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, his lab has studied how ant colonies regulate energy expenditure and developed new models of how economic inequality shapes human migration. His team has also collaborated with researchers from Sapienza University of Rome on a wearable navigation system for people with blindness or low vision.
In public health and urban science, Porfiri leads an National Science Foundation-backed research program applying causal analysis and mathematical modeling to what he calls the "firearm ecosystem,” the interplay of behavior, media, policy, and national dynamics that shapes gun violence in America. His team has also used urban scaling theory to show that cities deliver healthcare differently than assumed, and that city size shapes health outcomes in ways traditional models miss.
Porfiri is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He has been invited to the National Academy of Engineering's Frontiers of Engineering Symposium and World Laureate Forum, was named to Popular Science's "Brilliant Ten," and received the NSF CAREER Award. His research has been covered by CNN, NPR, Scientific American, the Discovery Channel among many media outlets.
Porfiri earned a Laurea in Electrical Engineering with honors from Sapienza University of Rome and holds dual Ph.D.s — one in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from Sapienza and the University of Toulon, and one in Engineering Mechanics from Virginia Tech.
Porfiri’s election marks the second time in as many years that a Tandon faculty member has been recognized by a leading European academy, following the 2024 election of Professor Zhong-Ping Jiang to the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. In 2021, Jiang was elected to the Academy of Europe (Academia Europaea), followed in 2023 by NYU Tandon Professor Elisa Riedo and, in 2024, by Professor Nizar Touzi.
