Daniele Di Pietro: The Math Aesthete

Daniele Di Pietro speaks a language unlike any other. Not Italian, his native tongue, but the language of mathematics—the one that brought him from Italy to Montpellier. Derivatives, partial differential equations, polytopic methods—words that didn’t sound like the siren song to him back then. And for good reason: the current director of the Alexandre Grothendieck Institute in Montpellier, named after another great mathematician, was originally headed for a career in computational fluid dynamics. However, he changed course early in his thesis when he metAlessandro Veneziani, a mathematician passionate about his work who would instill in him a love for numerical analysis.

“At that time, I also realized that without math I wouldn’t get anywhere, because I didn’t have enough physical intuition to develop numerical simulators,” recalls Daniele Di Pietro. And that’s just as well, because the young doctoral student at the time“clearlyhasa knack for math. “It’s a formalized language used across all disciplines, because the first step in research is precisely to formalize a problem.” Math? It’s everywhere, the researcher points out,“in your computer, in your phone, everywhere.” Universal , and yet so difficult to share.“Making ourselves understood by others by translating our research into everyday language is truly a difficulty unique to mathematics and a real challenge. Even with our colleagues, we sometimes only understand each other 20% of the time: we speak the same language, but we all have different dialects.”

Aesthetic aspect

Driven by this newfound passion, Daniele Di Pietro moved to Lausanne after completing his thesis to work in numerical analysis, and in 2007 he arrived in France, where he secured a postdoctoral position at the École des Ponts, quickly landing a research position at Ifpen. An exponential career that continued with an appointment as a professor at the University of Montpellier in 2012, at just 33 years old, where he focused his research on the development and analysis of innovative numerical methods for partial differential equations. Mathematical research that takes on an aesthetic dimension in the words of Daniele Di Pietro: “I love finding beauty in mathematics—the kind that comes from an idea, from a spark.”

With over 100 publications to his credit, the mathematician and aesthete who has been directing IMAG for the past three years is proud of the appeal of a laboratory that has recruited four research directors since the start of his tenure—an exceptional achievement.“Mathematics research is very active, and IMAG stands out particularly in terms of project proposals ,” explains Daniele Di Pietro. And the latest is no small feat: the researcher has just secured an ERC Synergy Grant,“the largest projects funded by the European Research Council, for which we received 7.8 million euros, including 4.4 million for IMAG,” explains the laboratory director, who is joined by three other internationally renowned researchers: Jérôme Droniou from IMAG, Paola Antonietti from the Politecnico di Milano, and Lourenço Beirão da Veiga from the University of Milan-Bicocca.

Tell a great story

The NEMESIS project aims to develop innovative numerical methods for partial differential equations, with the goal of creating a more flexible approach to the numerical simulation of physical problems.“It’s a project that’s difficult to explain at first glance, because the multidisciplinary review panel isn’t made up solely of mathematicians: we had to make sure everyone could understand it, ” explains the researcher, for whom writing a project proposal is a bit like telling a story.“To summarize, you have to choose the right elements; it’s a bit like choosing the right characters to tell a good story in which you are, of course, the hero, since you’re proposing to solve the problem at hand.”

And to help people understand this large-scale project, the researcher also explains what it could be used for.“Némésis targets several applications, including magnetohydrodynamics—which plays a role, for example, in aluminum fusion—and flow in porous and fractured media, which are involved in CO2 storage processes or in assessing risks associated with nuclear waste storage.”

Making Mathematics More Inclusive of Women

Daniele Di Pietro is delighted with this exceptional funding, but he also says it “will keep him very busy. It’s a massive project, and it’s also a huge amount of pressure.”The next step: recruiting about ten doctoral and postdoctoral students at IMAG to work on NEMESIS.“It’s difficult, because we’re looking for excellent, highly independent candidates: we need to find top-tier candidates.”Male or female candidates?“Mathematics has long been a very male-dominated field of research, ” the researcheracknowledges , “but in recent years the discipline has been catching up considerably in this regard, and the field is becoming much more female-dominated,” explains the director of IMAG, with a clear commitment to ensuring equal opportunities for men and women.“Of course, our primary recruitment criterion remains excellence. But, when candidates are equally qualified, we prioritize hiring women to close this gender gap.”

The next major challenge facing the director of IMAG will be finding space.“To accommodate the new hires, we’re going to have to expand.” While waiting to launch this large-scale recruitment drive, set to begin in January 2024, the mathematician has made an initial investment that now takes pride of place on his desk: a very large screen. Does this mean he’s abandoning the blackboard that feeds the idealized image of the mathematician writing equations incomprehensible to the average person?“You have to admit that the image is partly true, but I’m allergic to chalk,” confesses Daniele Di Pietro. A quirk that keeps him away from the blackboard but hasn’t stopped him from proudly pinning this ERC grant on an already well-stocked wall of honors.