Rate My Professor Maurizio Porfiri

Dr. Maurizio Porfiri is an Institute Professor at New York University Tandon School of Engineering, with tenured appointments in the Departments of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Biomedical Engineering. He currently serves as Director of the Center for Urban Science + Progress (CUSP), Interim Chair of the Department of Civil, Urban, and Environmental Engineering, and inaugural Director of the Urban Institute. Porfiri received M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Engineering Mechanics from Virginia Tech in 2000 and 2006, respectively; a Laurea in Electrical Engineering with honors from Sapienza University of Rome in 2001; and Ph.D. degrees in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from Sapienza University of Rome and the University of Toulon in 2005 through a dual-degree program. He joined NYU Tandon in 2006 as an Assistant Professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, founding the Dynamical Systems Laboratory, advanced to Associate Professor in 2011, Professor in 2014, and Institute Professor in 2020. Additional appointments include Professor in Biomedical Engineering since 2018 and associated faculty roles in Civil and Urban Engineering and Technology Management and Innovation.

Porfiri's research centers on complex systems, encompassing collective behavior, network science, control theory, dynamical systems theory, experimental and theoretical mechanics, animal and human behavior, public health, and robotics. He is the author of approximately 400 journal publications, including in Nature, Nature Human Behaviour, and Physical Review Letters. Key works include "Media coverage and firearm acquisition in the aftermath of a mass shooting" (Nature Human Behaviour, 2019), "Validity and limitations of the detection matrix to determine hidden units and network size from perceptible dynamics" (Physical Review Letters, 2020), and "An information-theoretic approach to study fluid-structure interactions" (Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 2018). A Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (2019) and IEEE Control Systems Society (2019, for contributions to biomimetic robotics), his honors include the ASME C.D. Mote, Jr. Early Career Award (2015), NSF Career Award (2008), Popular Science Brilliant Ten (2010), NYU Tandon Excellence in Research Award (2021), and Aspen Institute Italia Award (2024). Porfiri has served on editorial boards of journals such as ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I, and IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering. His research has garnered coverage in CNN, NPR, Scientific American, and Discovery Channel.