Materials Research Society-National Science Foundation PREM Research Scholars Summit Kickoff

Germano Iannacchione is the Division Director for the Division of Materials Research (DMR) at the National Science Foundation. He holds a PhD degree in Physics from Kent State University and held post-doctoral research appointments in Physics at Kent State University and in Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2023, Iannacchione joined the NSF as Division Director from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), where he has held a primary appointment in Physics since 1998. At WPI, Iannacchione served as Department Head of Physics from 2006-2016, and as the founding Director of the Nuclear Science and Engineering program and the Masters of Science in Physics for Educators program from 2012-2017. Iannacchione previously served as the NSF Program Director in Condensed Matter Physics from 2017-2020 and in Biomaterials from 2018-2019. 

Iannacchione’s research has primarily focused on phases and phase transitions in soft-condensed matter, specifically liquid crystals, polymers, and biomolecules in pure and composite systems, and Iannacchione is well known for his work on the effect of quenched random disorder on phase transitions and their critical behavior, which has provided the foundation for the general understanding of disordered systems in condensed matter. Iannacchione has published 113 peer-reviewed articles in physics and materials journals and six book chapters.