Daniele Di Pietro: The Aesthete of Mathematics

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’s 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 dissertation when he metAlessandro Veneziani, a mathematician passionate about his field 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 worked out well, because the young doctoral student at the time“clearlyhada knack for math. “It’s a formalized language used in 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 about 20% of what each other says: we speak the same language, but we all have our own dialects.”

Aesthetic Dimension

Driven by this new passion, Daniele Di Pietro left Lausanne after completing his thesis to pursue work in numerical analysis, and arrived in France in 2007, where he secured a postdoctoral position at the École des Ponts, quickly landing a research position at IFpen. His career took off rapidly, continuing with his appointment as a professor at the University of Montpellier in 2012—at just 33 years old—where he focuses his research on the development and analysis of innovative numerical methods for partial differential equations. This mathematical research 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 more than 100 publications to his credit, the mathematician and aesthete who has been directing IMAG for three years now is pleased with 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.

Telling a Great Story

The NEMESIS project aims to develop innovative numerical methods for partial differential equations in order to devise a more flexible approach to the numerical simulation of physical problems.“This is a project that’s difficult to explain at first, 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 it, you have to choose the right elements—it’s a bit like choosing the right characters to tell a good story in which you’re, of course, the hero, since you’re setting out 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 is aimed at several applications, including magnetohydrodynamics—which is involved, for example, in aluminum fusion—and flow in porous and fractured media, which play a role in CO2 storage processes or in assessing the 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 that it “will keep him very busy. It’s a huge 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 outstanding candidates who are highly independent: 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 making significant strides in closing the gender gap, and the field is becoming much more diverse in terms of gender,” 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 that of space.“To accommodate the new hires, we’re going to have to expand our facilities.” While waiting to launch this large-scale recruitment campaign, which will 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 turning his back on the blackboard—that iconic symbol of the mathematician writing equations incomprehensible to the average person?“I have to admit that image is partly true, but I’m allergic to chalk,” confesses Daniele Di Pietro. This quirk keeps him away from the blackboard, but it hasn’t stopped him from proudly pinning this ERC award to an already well-stocked wall of honors.