I am an applied mathematician working on flow and transport in complex materials: soils, rocks, filters, batteries, and peatlands. I build mathematical models across scales, analyse them, and turn them into open-source simulation tools, mostly in OpenFOAM. I lead the MultiForm group (Multiscale Fluid Dynamics and Porous Media) and coordinate the MATHPEAT network on the mathematics of peatlands and soft porous materials.
News
- Oct 2026: New PhD projects on peat, chocolate, clogging, batteries, physics-informed learning and scientific computing. See PhD opportunities.
- 2026: Mechanical thresholds constrain global peatland carbon accumulation, Scientific Reports (with A. W. Mahdiyasa, D. J. Large, S. Grebby, B. P. Muljadi).
- 2026: Experiments and computational modelling of transport effects in a packed bed reactor: the case of aqueous phase reforming, Chemical Engineering Science.
- 2025: Inverse physics-informed neural networks for transport models in porous materials, Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering.
Research in short
- Peatlands and soft porous materials: how bogs grow, creep and record their own history. More
- Multiscale modelling and homogenisation: replacing complicated microstructures by simpler averaged equations, and knowing when that works.
- Data and models together: stability of physics-informed and data-driven models, inverse problems, uncertainty quantification.
- Computation: finite-volume methods and open-source solvers for porous media, electrokinetics, clogging and multiphase flow. Software
Background
Before joining Nottingham in 2017 I was a Zeeman Lecturer at the University of Warwick, and a postdoc at UT Austin (ICES), KAUST and Politecnico di Torino, where I did my PhD in Chemical Engineering and my degrees in Mathematical Engineering.
Contact
Email: matteo.icardi@nottingham.ac.uk
Office: C43, Mathematical Sciences Building, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK