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Simons Collaboration PI Vincenzo Vitelli Receives MacArthur Fellowship
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The fellowship is awarded in recognition of his groundbreaking work in describing and demonstrating how classical, mechanical and active materials interact.
In recognition of Vincenzo Vitelli’s groundbreaking work in materials science, the MacArthur Foundation has named the University of Chicago (UChicago) physicist as one of its 2026 fellows. Popularly known as the “genius grant,” the MacArthur Fellowship is an $800,000 grant for individuals who have shown “exceptional creativity in their work and the promise to do more.”
As a member of the Simons Collaboration on Extreme Wave Phenomena Based on Symmetries, Vitelli studies the fundamental physics of the propagation of light and sound to better understand how the two can be manipulated for various applications.
Drawing on his expertise in metamaterials, Vitelli works with his fellow principal investigators to demonstrate how symmetries in materials at microscopic levels govern how waves travel through space. These insights can be used to develop new forms of synthetic matter that more precisely control how waves propagate, which in turn could advance technologies in telecommunications, biomedical sciences, energy and other fields.
“Vitelli’s research is inspiring new metamaterials in mechanical engineering, robotics, and biophysics, and he is opening up new research directions into how non-reciprocal physics principles could apply to biology, human behavior, and artificial intelligence,” the MacArthur Foundation wrote in its announcement.
Vitelli is a professor of physics at UChicago, where he has taught since 2017. He received his B.A. from Imperial College London and his Ph.D. from Harvard University. In addition to his MacArthur Fellowship, he is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Physical Society.