Maurizio Porfiri
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Institute Professor
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Director of Center for Urban Science + Progress (CUSP)
![Maurizio Porfiri](/sites/default/files/styles/square_large_default_1x/public/2022-11/T2223OP_FacultyHeadshot_Maurizio-Porfiri_DSC03798-pv6uspo0u6n9d329hax5f5xxak3a4xw5ohcful0asg_0.png?h=1d11c2e6&itok=iUwQIaLt)
Dr. Maurizio Porfiri is an Institute Professor at New York University Tandon School of Engineering, with tenured appointments at the Departments of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Biomedical Engineering, and the Director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress of New York University. He received M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Engineering Mechanics from Virginia Tech, in 2000 and 2006; a “Laurea” in Electrical Engineering (with honors) and a Ph.D. in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from Sapienza University of Rome and the University of Toulon (dual degree program), in 2001 and 2005, respectively. He has been on the faculty of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department since 2006, when he founded the Dynamical Systems Laboratory.
Dr. Porfiri is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). He has served in the Editorial Board of ASME Journal of Dynamics systems, Measurements and Control, ASME Journal of Vibrations and Acoustics, Flow: Applications of Fluid Mechanics, IEEE Control Systems Letters, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I, IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering, Mathematics in Engineering, and Mechatronics. Dr. Porfiri is engaged in conducting and supervising research on complex systems, with applications from mechanics to behavior, public health, and robotics.
He is the author of approximately 400 journal publications, including papers in Nature, Nature Human Behaviour, and Physical Review Letters. He was included in the “Brilliant 10” list of Popular Science in 2010 and his research featured in major media outlets, such as CNN, NPR, Scientific American, and Discovery Channel. Other significant recognitions include National Science Foundation CAREER award; invitations to the Frontiers of Engineering Symposium and the Japan-America Frontiers of Engineering Symposium organized by National Academy of Engineering; invitation to the third and fourth World Laureate Forums; the Outstanding Young Alumnus award by the college of Engineering of Virginia Tech; the ASME Gary Anderson Early Achievement Award; the ASME DSCD Young Investigator Award; the ASME C.D. Mote, Jr. Early Career Award; and the Research Excellence Award from New York University Tandon School of Engineering.
Education
Sapienza University of Rome, 2001
Laurea (B.Sc./M.Sc.), Electrical Engineering
Sapienza University of Rome, 2005
Doctor of Philosophy, Theoretical and Applied Mechanics
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, 2000
Master of Science, Engineering Mechanics
University of Toulon, 2005
Doctor of Philosophy, Theoretical and Applied Mechanics
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, 2006
Doctor of Philosophy, Engineering Mechanics
Experience
NYU Tandon School of Engineering
Institute Professor
From: January 2020 to present
NYU Tandon School of Engineering
Professor
From: September 2014 to present
NYU Tandon School of Engineering
Associate Professor
From: September 2011 to August 2014
NYU Tandon School of Engineering
Assistant Professor
From: July 2006 to September 2011
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Post-Doctoral Associate
From: July 2005 to June 2006
Publications
Journal Articles (selection from the last ten years)
- Porfiri, M., 2020: "Validity and limitations of the detection matrix to determine hidden units and network size from perceptible dynamics", Physical Review Letters 124(16), 168301
- Porfiri, M., Sattanapalle, R. R., Nakayama, S., Macinko, J., Sipahi, R., 2019: "Media coverage and firearm acquisition in the aftermath of a mass shooting", Nature Human Behaviour 3(9), 913-921
- Zhang, P., Rosen, M., Peterson, S. D., Porfiri, M., 2018: "An information-theoretic approach to study fluid-structure interactions",Journal of Fluid Mechanics 848, 968-986
- Golovneva, O., Jeter, R., Belykh, I., Porfiri, M., 2017: "Windows of opportunity for synchronization in stochastically coupled maps",Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena 340, 1-13
- Zino, L., Rizzo, A., Porfiri, M., 2016: "Continuous-time discrete-distribution theory for activity-driven networks", Physical Review Letters 117(22), 228302
- Mwaffo, V., Anderson, R. P., Butail, S., Porfiri, M., 2015: "A jump persistent turning walker to model zebrafish locomotion", Journal of the Royal Society Interface 12(102), 20140884
- Cha, Y., Porfiri, M., 2014: "Mechanics and electrochemistry of ionic polymer metal composites", Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids 71, 156–178
- Panciroli, R., Porfiri, M., 2013: "Evaluation of the pressure field on a rigid body entering a quiescent fluid through particle image velocimetry", Experiments in Fluids 54(12), 1630
- Marras, S., Porfiri, M., 2012: "Fish and robots swimming together: attraction towards the robot demands biomimetic locomotion", Journal of the Royal Society Interface 9(73), 1856–1868
- Abaid, N., Porfiri, M., 2011: "Consensus over numerosity-constrained random networks", IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control 56(3), 649-654
- Aureli, M., Kopman, V., Porfiri, M., 2010: "Free-locomotion of underwater vehicles actuated by ionic polymer metal composites",IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics 15(4), 603-614
Awards
- Institute Professor at NYU Tandon School of Engineering, 2020
- ASME Fellow, 2019
- IEEE Fellow, Control Systems Society, 2019 ("For contributions to biomimetic robotics")
- ASME C.D. Mote, Jr. Early Career Award, 2015
- Invitee of Japan-America Frontiers of Engineering Symposium, National Academy of Engineering, 2014
- Jacobs Excellence in Education Award, 2014
- ASME Dynamic Systems & Control Division Young Investigator Award, 2013
- ASME Gary Anderson Early Achievement Award, 2013
- Outstanding Young Alumnus, College of Engineering Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2012
- Best student paper competition award at the 2012 ASME Conference on Smart Materials, Adaptive Structures and Intelligent Systems (with graduate students Youngsu Cha and Matteo Aureli)
- Invited speaker for the “lectio magistralis” at “Sapienza Ricerca”, 2011
- Best paper award at the 2011 ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Conference (with graduate student Nicole Abaid)
- Invitee of Frontiers of Engineering Symposium, National Academy of Engineering, 2011
- Jacobs Excellence in Education Award, 2011
- Popular Science "Brilliant Ten", 2010
- Best robotics paper award at the 2009 ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Conference (with graduate students Matteo Aureli and Vladislav Kopman)
- NSF Career award (Dynamical systems), 2008
- H2CU medal, 2008
Research News
New research explores how ant colonies regulate group behaviors
In the world of social creatures, from humans to ants, the spread of behaviors through a group — known as social contagion — is a well-documented phenomenon. This process, driven by social imitation and pressure, causes individuals to adopt behaviors observed in their peers, often resulting in synchronized mass actions; Think of stampedes, or standing ovations.
Social contagion is a double-edged sword in highly integrated societies. While it facilitates cohesion and collective efficiency, unchecked contagion can lead to detrimental mass behaviors, such as mass panic. Thus, nature has evolved regulatory mechanisms to keep such behaviors in check.
One such mechanism is reverse social contagion. In reverse social contagions, increased interactions between individuals engaged in a behavior lead to a higher likelihood of them stopping that behavior, rather than engaging in it.
In a new paper published in PNAS Nexus, researchers led by Maurizio Porfiri — NYU Tandon Institute Professor of Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and Civil and Urban Engineering, as well as the director of its Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) — describe this unique phenomenon in colonies of harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex californicus) in order to understand the energetic consequences of highly integrated social behavior.
“Ants colonies reduce their energy spending per individual as the colony grows, similar to the size-dependent scaling of metabolic costs in birds and mammals discovered by Kleiber almost a century ago,” said Porfiri. “To date, a convincing explanation of how this collective response emerges is lacking.”
Utilizing tracked video recordings of several colonies, they discovered that individual ants did not increase their activity levels in proportion to the colony size. This was a curious finding, because larger colonies means more interactions between their members, and more opportunities for reinforcing behaviors.
To decode this behavior, the team — who also includes Pietro De Lellis from the University of Naples, Eighdi Aung and (Tandon alum) Nicole Abaid from Virginia Tech, Jane S. Waters from Providence College, and Santiago Meneses and Simon Garnier from the New Jersey Institute of Technology — applied scaling theories typically used to study human settlements. They derived relationships linking colony size to interaction networks and activity levels, hypothesizing that reverse social contagion was at play. Their hypothesis was supported by respirometry data, which revealed a potential connection between ant activity and metabolism.
Imagine you are an ant, and you see one of your fellow workers foraging for food. If you are governed by social contagion, you might also begin foraging so you don't look lazy. But the energy you expend foraging might not be worth it if one ant can efficiently gather the food. In this case, reverse social contagion tells you to kick your feet up and relax while you let your compatriot do the work, because you’ll need your energy later for another task. In this way, restraining social contagion makes the colony more efficient.
The study draws a fascinating parallel between insect colonies and human cities. In both systems, social interactions influence energy expenditure, but in opposite directions. Insect colonies exhibit hypometric scaling—activity levels do not increase proportionally with colony size. In contrast, human cities show hypermetric scaling, where energy expenditure grows faster than the population size.
“Human behavior is often driven by personal gain” says Simon Garnier, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at NJIT and senior author on the paper. “Ants, on the other hand, tend to prioritize the needs of the colony over their own. This has huge implications for understanding the differences between the organization of human and social insect societies.”
Unlike humans, ants manage their energy as a colony rather than individually, somehow displaying a cooperative response. This study shows that ants use reverse social contagion to regulate their overall activity and energy use. Essentially, when many ants are busy with a task, some will stop to prevent the entire colony from overworking. This behavior aligns with scaling laws and metabolic patterns seen in other biological systems.
In simpler terms, think of an ant colony as one big organism where every ant's actions are coordinated for the colony's benefit, not just their own. Future research will look into how exactly these ants communicate and manage their energy so efficiently.
This research not only sheds light on the regulatory mechanisms in ant colonies but also offers insights into the broader principles of social regulation across species. As we continue to explore these parallels, we may uncover more about the fundamental dynamics that govern both natural and human-made systems.
“This is the first step we are taking to understand and model energy regulation in ant colonies,” said Porfiri. “Is energy regulation accompanied by improved performance for the collective? Can we design algorithms for robot teams inspired by ants that can maximize performance and minimize energy costs? Can we learn some lessons for our city transportation networks? These are just some of the questions we would like to address next. ”
This work was funded in part by a $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation, which over five years will aim to create a new paradigm for a better understanding of how loosely connected units can nonetheless collectively maintain function and homeostasis.
Porfiri, M., De Lellis, P., Aung, E., Meneses, S., Abaid, N., Waters, J. S., & Garnier, S. (2024). Reverse social contagion as a mechanism for regulating mass behaviors in highly integrated social systems. PNAS Nexus, 3(7). https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae246
NYU Tandon researchers develop technology that may allow stroke patients to undergo rehab at home
For survivors of strokes, which afflict nearly 800,000 Americans each year, regaining fine motor skills like writing and using utensils is critical for recovering independence and quality of life. But getting intensive, frequent rehabilitation therapy can be challenging and expensive.
Now, researchers at NYU Tandon School of Engineering are developing a new technology that could allow stroke patients to undergo rehabilitation exercises at home by tracking their wrist movements through a simple setup: a smartphone strapped to the forearm and a low-cost gaming controller called the Novint Falcon.
The Novint Falcon, a desktop robot typically used for video games, can guide users through specific arm motions and track the trajectory of its controller. But it cannot directly measure the angle of the user's wrist, which is essential data for therapists providing remote rehabilitation.
In a paper presented at SPIE Smart Structures + Nondestructive Evaluation 2024, the researchers proposed using the Falcon in tandem with a smartphone's built-in motion sensors to precisely monitor wrist angles during rehab exercises.
"Patients would strap their phone to their forearm and manipulate this robot," said Maurizio Porfiri, NYU Tandon Institute Professor and director of its Center for Urban Science + Progress (CUSP), who is the paper’s senior author. "Data from the phone's inertial sensors can then be combined with the robot's measurements through machine learning to infer the patient's wrist angle."
The researchers collected data from a healthy subject performing tasks with the Falcon while wearing motion sensors on the forearm and hand to capture the true wrist angle. They then trained an algorithm to predict the wrist angles based on the sensor data and Falcon controller movements.
The resulting algorithm could predict wrist angles with over 90% accuracy, a promising initial step toward enabling remote therapy with real-time feedback in the absence of an in-person therapist.
"This technology could allow patients to undergo rehabilitation exercises at home while providing detailed data to therapists remotely assessing their progress," Roni Barak Ventura, the paper’s lead author who was an NYU Tandon postdoctoral fellow at the time of the study. "It's a low-cost, user-friendly approach to increasing access to crucial post-stroke care."
The researchers plan to further refine the algorithm using data from more subjects. Ultimately, they hope the system could help stroke survivors stick to intensive rehab regimens from the comfort of their homes.
"The ability to do rehabilitation exercises at home with automatic tracking could dramatically improve quality of life for stroke patients," said Barak Ventura. "This portable, affordable technology has great potential for making a difficult recovery process much more accessible."
This study adds to NYU Tandon’s body of work that aims to improve stroke recovery. In 2022, Researchers from NYU Tandon began collaborating with the FDA to design a regulatory science tool based on biomarkers to objectively assess the efficacy of rehabilitation devices for post-stroke motor recovery and guide their optimal usage. A study from earlier this year unveiled advances in technology that uses implanted brain electrodes to recreate the speaking voice of someone who has lost speech ability, which can be an outcome from stroke.
In addition to Porfiri and Barak Ventura, the study’s authors are Angelo Catalano, who earned an MS from NYU Tandon in 2024, and Rayan Succar, an NYU Tandon PhD candidate. The study was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation.
Roni Barak Ventura, Angelo Catalano, Rayan Succar, and Maurizio Porfiri "Automating the assessment of wrist motion in telerehabilitation with haptic devices", Proc. SPIE 12948, Soft Mechatronics and Wearable Systems, 129480F (9 May 2024); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3010545
Deep-sea sponge's “zero-energy” flow control could inspire new energy efficient designs
The Venus flower basket sponge, with its delicate glass-like lattice outer skeleton, has long intrigued researchers seeking to explain how this fragile-seeming creature’s body can withstand the harsh conditions of the deep sea where it lives.
Now, new research reveals yet another engineering feat of this ancient animal’s structure: its ability to filter feed using only the faint ambient currents of the ocean depths, no pumping required.
This discovery of natural ‘“zero energy” flow control by an international research team co-led by University of Rome Tor Vergata and NYU Tandon School of Engineering could help engineers design more efficient chemical reactors, air purification systems, heat exchangers, hydraulic systems, and aerodynamic surfaces.
In a study published in Physical Review Letters, the team found through extremely high-resolution computer simulations how the skeletal structure of the Venus flower basket sponge (Euplectella aspergillum) diverts very slow deep sea currents to flow upwards into its central body cavity, so it can feed on plankton and other marine detritus it filters out of the water.
The sponge pulls this off via its spiral, ridged outer surface that functions like a spiral staircase. This allows it to passively draw water upwards through its porous, lattice-like frame, all without the energy demands of pumping.
"Our research settles a debate that has emerged in recent years: the Venus flower basket sponge may be able to draw in nutrients passively, without any active pumping mechanism," said Maurizio Porfiri, NYU Tandon Institute Professor and director of its Center for Urban Science + Progress (CUSP), who co-led the study and co-supervised the research. "It's an incredible adaptation allowing this filter feeder to thrive in currents normally unsuitable for suspension feeding."
At higher flow speeds, the lattice structure helps reduce drag on the organism. But it is in the near-stillness of the deep ocean floors that this natural ventilation system is most remarkable, and demonstrates just how well the sponge accommodates its harsh environment. The study found that the sponge’s ability to passively draw in food works only at the very slow current speeds – just centimeters per second – of its habitat.
"From an engineering perspective, the skeletal system of the sponge shows remarkable adaptations to its environment, not only from the structural point of view, but also for what concerns its fluid dynamic performance," said Giacomo Falcucci of Tor Vergata University of Rome and Harvard University, the paper’s first author. Along with Porfiri, Falcucci co-led the study, co-supervised the research and designed the computer simulations. "The sponge has arrived at an elegant solution for maximizing nutrient supply while operating entirely through passive mechanisms."
Researchers used the powerful Leonardo supercomputer at CINECA, a supercomputing center in Italy, to create a highly realistic 3D replica of the sponge, containing around 100 billion individual points that recreate the sponge's complex helical ridge structure. This “digital twin” allows experimentation that is impossible on live sponges, which cannot survive outside their deep-sea environment.
The team performed highly detailed simulations of water flow around and inside the computer model of the skeleton of the Venus flower basket sponge. With Leonardo's massive computing power, allowing quadrillions of calculations per second, they could simulate a wide range of water flow speeds and conditions.
The researchers say the biomimetic engineering insights they uncovered could help guide the design of more efficient reactors by optimizing flow patterns inside while minimizing drag outside. Similar ridged, porous surfaces could enhance air filtration and ventilation systems in skyscrapers and other structures. The asymmetric, helical ridges may even inspire low-drag hulls or fuselages that stay streamlined while promoting interior air flows.
The study builds upon the team’s prior Euplectella aspergillum research published in Nature in 2021, in which it revealed it had created a first-ever simulation of the deep-sea sponge and how it responds to and influences the flow of nearby water.
In addition to Porfiri and Falcucci, the current study’s authors are Giorgio Amati of CINECA; Gino Bella of Niccolò Cusano University; Andrea Luigi Facci of University of Tuscia; Vesselin K. Krastev of University of Rome Tor Vergata; Giovanni Polverino of University of Tuscia, Monash University, and University of Western Australia; and Sauro Succi of the Italian Institute of Technology.
A grant from the National Science Foundation supported the research. Other funding came from CINECA, Next Generation EU, European Research Council, Monash University and University of Tuscia.
High-profile incidents of police brutality sway public opinion more than performance of people’s local law enforcement, new study from NYU Tandon reveals
National media coverage of police brutality influences public perceptions of law enforcement more than the performance of people’s local police departments, according to data analysis from NYU Tandon School of Engineering, challenging the assumption that public confidence in police depends mostly on feeling safe from local crime.
In a study published in Communications Psychology, a NYU Tandon research team tracked media coverage of police brutality in 18 metropolitan areas in the United States — along with coverage of local crimes — and analyzed tweets from those cities to tease out positive attitudes from negative ones towards the police.
Led by Maurizio Porfiri, Institute Professor and Director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP), the team found when high-profile cases of police brutality make the news, negative sentiment and distrust towards police spikes across cities, even if the incident occurred in another state.
In contrast, local media coverage of crimes in people's own cities had little sway over their views of the police. Porfiri discussed the research and its implications in a blog post.
“Our research shows that police misconduct occurring anywhere reverberates across the country, while performance of police in their own communities contribute minimally towards attitudes around those local police departments,” said Rayan Succar, a Ph.D. candidate in Mechanical Engineering and CUSP who is the paper’s lead author. “The pattern holds steady across diverse cities.”
To reach their conclusions, researchers employed transfer entropy — an advanced statistical technique that allowed them to detect causal relationships within complex systems that change over time — in their analysis of more than 2.5 million geo-localized tweets. The approach allows for significantly more time-sensitive analysis of public sentiment than standard surveys which are constrained to the point in time at which they are fielded.
“By comparing this time series tracking shifts in sentiment to parallel time series documenting volumes of media coverage about local crime and national police brutality news, transfer entropy quantified causal relationships between media coverage and Twitter discourse about law enforcement,” said Salvador Ramallo, Fulbright Scholar from the University of Murcia in Spain and a visiting member of CUSP who is part of the research team.
The researchers assembled their data from the period October 1, 2010 to December 31, 2020. With a time resolution of one minute, the team collected tweets in each metropolitan area that contained the words “police,” “cop,” or the local police department name abbreviation of the main city in the metropolitan area (“NYPD” for New York Police Department).
In that same time frame, researchers collected coverage of police brutality and of local crime from 17 of the 20 most circulated newspapers.
To better detail the interplay between media coverage and public sentiment, the researchers also zeroed in on a two-week period around the heavily-covered George Floyd murder, a notorious example of extreme police brutality. Specifically, they scraped the Twitter feeds of the top 10 most-followed newspaper profiles and created a time series of police brutality coverage from May 29, 2020 until June 13, 2020.
This highly resolved time series was examined in conjunction with the time series of negative tweets about the police for each of the 18 metropolitan areas during the same two-week time window.
“The research reveals how profoundly a single incident of police violence can rupture public trust in police everywhere,” said CUSP postdoctoral fellow Roni Barak Ventura, a member of the research team. “The findings suggest that to improve perceptions, police departments may need to prioritize transparency around misconduct allegations as much as local crime fighting. More community dialogue and balanced media coverage may also help build understanding between police and the public they serve.”
This study is the latest in a series that Porfiri is pursuing under a 2020 National Science Foundation grant awarded to study the “firearm ecosystem” in the United States. His research employs sophisticated data analytics to investigate the firearm ecosystem on three different scales. On the macroscale, research illuminates cause-and-effect relationships between firearm prevalence and firearm-related harms. On the mesoscale, the project explores the ideological, economic, and political landscape underlying state approaches to firearm safety. On the microscale, research delves into individual opinions about firearm safety.
Porfiri’s prior published research has focused on motivations of fame-seeking mass shooters, factors that prompt gun purchases, state-by-state gun ownership trends, and forecasting monthly gun homicide rates.
CUSP postdoctoral fellow Rishita Das also contributed to the study.
Succar, R., Ramallo, S., Das, R. et al. Understanding the role of media in the formation of public sentiment towards the police. Commun Psychol 2, 11 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-024-00059-8