Matteo Pasquali, PhD

A.J. Hartsook Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Professor of Chemistry and Materials Science and NanoEngineering

Email: mp@rice.edu

Matteo Pasquali joined Rice in 2000 and is a Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, the Department of Chemistry, and the Department of Materials Science & Nanoengineering.  During his tenure, he served as Co-Director of the Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory in the Richard E. Smalley Institute.

His current research interests include:

  • theoretical, computational, and experimental aspects of: scalable liquid-phase processing of single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs)
  • behavior of individual SWNTs in water and other liquids
  • behavior of concentrated liquid phases of SWNTs (networks; lyotropic liquid crystals)
  • behavior of functionalized SWNTs in liquids; scalable production of SWNTs
  • scalable separation of metallic vs. semiconductor SWNTs
  • fiber spinning of neat and functionalized SWNTs from solutions
  • fabrication of transparent, conductive films of SWNTs
  • applications of SWNTs as fuel cell electrods
  • applications of SWNTs in biological systems
  • fluid mechanics of polymer solutions
  • visualization of flowing DNA molecules
  • free-surface and interfacial flows
  • flow, hemolysis, and thrombosis in blood pumps
  • response of white and red blood cells to strain and stress
  • stabilized Galerkin/finite element methods for viscoelastic flow
  • rheology of semi-flexible polymer molecules
  • DNA condensation
  • emulsion rheology

Dr. Pasquali earned his M.Sci. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Bologna (Italy) ans his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Minnesota. He was awarded the NSF Career Award in 2001, the CIBA-GEIGY prize for best chemical student thesis, the ENICHEM Prize at the University of Bologna, and a scholarship to pursue graduate study abroad. In 2009, he was named the GSA Faculty of the Year.  He has published 111+ articles and holds 12 US patents. Dr. Pasquali has served on 28 Ph.D. and 11 M.Sci Thesis Defenses, and 25 Ph.D. preliminary proposal defenses. Prof Pasquali is a member of AICHE, AAAS, SOR, AIP, APS, and ACS, and served a three-year on the Rice University Faculty Senate. His research articles are cited over 500 times per year. He leads a group funded at about $1.2M per year by government agencies (DOD, NIST, NSF, etc), scientific foundations, and private corporations. He and his wife, Dr. Marie-Nathalie Contou-Carrere have also completed a five-year term as Masters of  Lovett College.