Jacopo Movilli

Jacopo Movilli is a chemist specialized in controlling processes at the interface of man-made systems, from biosensors to adaptive materials, to modulate responses across different length scales. He earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Siena (Italy) with a joint thesis at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and completed his master’s degree at the University of Padua (Italy). Jacopo pursued a PhD in molecular biorecognition at the University of Twente (Netherlands), where he developed a universal strategy to engineer interfaces for DNA detection and created a platform to mimic and quantify the behavior of influenza viruses. As a postdoc at the University of Groningen, he explored how nanoscopic changes at interfaces induce life-like characteristics, such as motility and shape-morphing, in liquid crystals. His Marie-Curie postdoctoral project (brightLINK) will take him to Harvard and Padua to design bioinspired objects that exhibit propulsion, self-aggregation, and communication upon light irradiation.