Rate My Professor Adrian Del Maestro

Adrian Del Maestro is the Professor and Department Head of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, holding a joint appointment as Professor in the Min H. Kao Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He obtained his PhD in Physics from Harvard University in 2008, advised by Subir Sachdev with research on quantum phase transitions in superconductors, and previously earned an MS in Physics from Yale University. Following postdoctoral fellowships at the University of British Columbia and the Institute for Quantum Matter, a joint initiative of Johns Hopkins University and Princeton University, he was appointed Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Vermont in 2011 and promoted to Associate Professor in 2017. During his time at Vermont, he directed the Vermont Advanced Computing Core from 2018 to 2020. He joined the University of Tennessee in 2020 as full Professor and assumed the role of Department Head in 2022. Additionally, he received a prestigious NSF CAREER Award during his tenure at Vermont to support his research on quantum many-body systems.

Del Maestro's academic interests lie in condensed matter physics, particularly the theoretical study of quantum many-body phenomena. His group utilizes advanced computational algorithms and quantum field theory to explore phase transitions, entanglement growth, dimensional crossovers, and collective states in systems such as superfluid helium, ultracold bosonic gases, superconductors, and topological insulators, with a focus on low-dimensional regimes where quantum fluctuations prevent conventional long-range order. Representative publications include "Experimental realization of one dimensional helium" (Nature Communications, 2022), "Critical flow and dissipation in a quasi-one-dimensional superfluid" (Science Advances, 2015), "Compact unary coding for bosonic states as efficient as conventional binary encoding for fermionic states" (Physical Review B, 2022), "A Perspective on Collective Properties of Atoms on 2D Materials" (Advanced Electronic Materials, 2021), and "Rényi Generalization of the Accessible Entanglement Entropy" (Physical Review Letters, 2018). Through his leadership in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and affiliations with the Tennessee Quantum Center, Del Maestro advances quantum simulation and technology development. He has delivered invited talks, including on active learning approaches to quantum phase transitions.