SoftMatter@interfaces

Jacopo is a PhD student at the Composites Science, Engineering and Manufacturing Centre for Doctoral Training (CoSEM CDT) at the Bristol Composites Institute (BCI) in the Faculty of Engineering. His project focuses on the characterisation and modelling of the structure-property relationships in bio-based (plant-derived) polyurethane foams.

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Originally from Northern Italy, Jacopo loves hiking, pizza (& blue cheese fondue, which we can confirm) and occasional (regular, rather, we suspect) pub trips. Before finding the sunny shores of England, he obtained his BSc and MSc in Materials Engineering and Nanotechnology at Politecnico di Milano.

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Jacopo's versatile experimental expertise and suprising penchant for synchrotron X-rays could only be satisfied by an interdisciplinary team of supervisors: Prof. Fabrizio Scarpa, Dr. Jemma Rowlandson (BCI), Dr. Charles de Kergariou (BCI), Dr. Qicheng Zhang (Beihang University), and Prof. Wuge Briscoe (School of Chemistry). He also collaborates with Prof. Tulio Panzera (Federal University of São João del Rei).

Jacopo won the Best Oral Presentation Award at the 2nd Conference on Engineering Porous Materials at Multiple Scales (EPoMM) in Sep 2025 held at the University of Bath, for his talk titled "Microstructure and Mechanical Performance of Molongó Wood: Unveiling an Unexplored Amazonian Timber".  Jacopo also completed a three-month academic placement at Monash University (Melbourne, Australia) under the supervision of Prof. Neil Cameron. When he was not destroying his own foams, he also helped Ruiting Zhang (Jilin University) squeeze her gel-infused PU foams. Despite these distractions, Jacopo is experienceing an extremely rare risk of completing his PhD earlier due to his immense productivity...​