Matthieu Wyart

Professor
Matthieu Wyart
Professor Matthieu Wyart
	Matthieu Wyart in 2021
Born	1978 (age 46–47); Paris, France
Citizenship	France
Education	Physics, mathematics, economics
Alma mater	École Polytechnique; École normale supérieure; Saclay Nuclear Research Centre
Awards	2024 Physik-Preis Dresden; 2015 Simons Investigator Award; 2011 Sloan Fellowship
	Scientific career
Fields	Soft condensed-matter; Glass transition; Granular matter; Deep learning; Biophysics; Neuroscience; Econophysics
Institutions	EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne)
Thesis	On the rigidity of amorphous solids. Price fluctuations, Conventions and Microstructure of Financial Markets
Doctoral advisor	Jean-Philippe Bouchaud
Website	www.epfl.ch/labs/pcsl/

Matthieu Wyart (born 1978 in Paris, France) is a French physicist. He is a professor of physics at EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) and the head of the Physics of Complex Systems Laboratory.^[1]^[2]

Career

Wyart studied physics, mathematics and economics at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris and obtained a degree with honors in physics in 2001. In 2002, he received a diploma in Advanced Studies in theoretical physics with highest honors from the École normale supérieure in Paris. He then joined Jean-Philippe Bouchaud and Marc Mézard at the Service de Physique de l'Etat Condensé (SPEC) at Saclay Nuclear Research Centre (CEA Saclay) in Paris as a doctoral student.^[3] In 2006, he gained a PhD in theoretical physics and finance for a thesis on electronic markets titled On the rigidity of amorphous solids. Price fluctuations, Conventions and Microstructure of Financial Markets.^[4]

In 2005, he became an analyst in the research department of Capital Fund Management.^[5] Between 2005 and 2008 he was George Carrier Fellow at Harvard University's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.^[6] He then joined Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Farm Campus as a research specialist.^[7] Starting in 2009, he was a visiting research specialist at the Lewis-Sigler Institute at Princeton University.^[8] He then joined New York University first as Assistant Professor in 2010 and was promoted to an associate professor position in 2014.^[2]^[9]

Since July 2015, he has been Associate Professor of Theoretical Physics in the School of Basic Sciences at EPFL.^[1]^[2] He became full professor in 2024. He was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2021.^[10]

Research

Wyart’s research encompassed field such as the architecture of allosteric materials,^[11] the theory of deep learning,^[12] the elasticity and mechanical stability in disordered solids,^[13] the granular and suspension flows,^[13] the glass and rigidity transitions,^[14] the marginal stability at random close packing and other glasses,^[15] and the yielding transition and elasto-plasticity.^[16]

In particular, some of his recent research is focused on the classification of the elementary excitations controlling the linear and the plastic response in amorphous materials.^[17] He has discovered that some of these excitations are marginally stable in the solid phase.^[18] This marginality fixes key aspects of structures, and suggest that the density of excitations presents a pseudo-gap. These concepts are important to understand low-temperature properties of glasses,^[19] the rheology of dense granular and suspension flows,^[20] the elasticity close to the jamming transition,^[21] the production transition in foams or metallic glass,^[17] and more broadly glassy systems with enough long-range interactions.^[22]

Distinctions

Wyart is the recipient of the Physik-Preis Dresden 2024, the 2015 Simons Investigator Award by the Simons Foundation,^[23] Chaire Joliot (visiting professor) by the Ecole de Physique et Chimie in Paris in 2013,^[24] the 2011 Sloan Fellowship,^[9] and the 2005 G. Carrier Fellowship.^[24]