Physics of Networks: Unprecedented Materials and Control of Complex Systems

This is a proposal to the Simons Fellows program for the support of a three-quarter research leave, from 09/01/15 through 06/30/16, as endorsed by Northwestern University. I plan to spend the first three months of this period visiting the group of Professor Giorgio Parisi at the University of Rome "La Sapienza". The last six months I plan to spend visiting the group of Professor L. Mahadevan at Harvard University. The collaboration with Professors Parisi and Mahadevan, combined with the excellent research environment in their institutions, will have a significant impact on the scientific outcomes of my research program, both during and after this leave. The research proposed for this leave will consist of two parts, one focused on combining network and dynamical concepts to design and study inverted phase transitions (to be developed mainly during the visit to Rome) and another focused on developing and applying a phase-space approach to control network dynamics (to be developed during the proposed visit to Harvard).