A mathematician who specialises in quantifying uncertainty has won a €2 million funding award from the Italian government.
Lorenzo Pareschi, Chair of Applied Mathematics at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, will use the funding to try to better understand and predict complex phenomena such as epidemics, traffic, the economy and even how opinions spread on social media.
Professor Pareschi said: “This research could potentially impact many sectors, including clean energy production and space exploration. But the tools we develop could also be applied to situations closer to our daily lives, like the spread of epidemics, the way opinions develop on social media and the progress of elections.”
The award is an Advanced Grant from the Italian Science Fund (FIS), which was established by Italy’s Ministry of University and Research to support research excellence in Italy.
The University of Ferrara in Italy, where Professor Pareschi is a Professor of Numerical Analysis, said the award underlines the “central role of applied mathematics in understanding and predicting the scientific and technological challenges of modern society.”
Professor Pareschi is also the only mathematics researcher in Italy to receive Advanced Grant funding from the Italian Science Fund, the University of Ferrera added.
Professor Pareschi leads the research project ADAMUS, which develops advanced mathematical tools to analyse complex systems from epidemics to environmental and societal dynamics.
The project identifies interconnected dynamics in seemingly different phenomena—dynamics that often cannot be effectively studied using conventional methods. ADAMUS was created to develop new mathematical frameworks capable of describing, analysing, and predicting such phenomena with greater precision and efficiency.
Professor Pareschi explained: “We are essentially using mathematics to uncover and describe the hidden laws governing certain phenomena. This is becoming increasingly important as risks associated with emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, continue to grow.
“For example, we know that social media can influence political elections, shape public opinion, and even affect consumer behaviour. Developing predictive tools for these dynamics can also help mitigate the spread of fake news, enabling us to better understand, control, and navigate these complex phenomena.”
Professor Pareschi received his PhD in Mathematics from the University of Bologna, Italy, and subsequently held visiting professorships in the United States at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta and the University of Wisconsin-Madison and in France at the University of Orléans and University of Toulouse.
He was previously Head of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Ferrara in Italy and holds awards including a 2023 Royal Society Wolfson Fellowship, which awards long-term funding to senior researchers in the UK
Since joining Heriot-Watt University in 2023, Professor Pareschi’s research has increasingly focused on problems of uncertainty quantification, optimal control, global optimisation and machine learning.
Professor Pareschi is also member of the steering committee of the Italian Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIMAI), and member of the Committee for Applications and Interdisciplinary Relations (CAIR) of the European Mathematical Society (EMS).