Matteo Sommacal

Dr Matteo Sommacal

Assistant Professor

School: Engineering, Physics and Mathematics

Matteo Sommacal was born in Roma, Italy, on November 18, 1977. Currently, he is Senior Lecturer in Applied Mathematics (becoming Associate Professor in Applied Mathematics on 1/9/2026) in the School of Enginering, Physics and Mathematics (formerly the Department of Mathematics, Physics and Electrical Engineering) at �ֲ��ý��Ƶ, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, where he arrived in January 2012. He earned a M.Sc. in Physics at the Università degli studi di Roma "La Sapienza", Italy (2002). Subsequently, he received a Ph.D. in Mathematical Physics at the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, with Professor Francesco Calogero as advisor (2005), discussing the thesis "The Transition from Regular to Irregular Motions, Explained as Travel on Riemann Surfaces".

After the Ph.D. studies, he got several academic positions as post-doctoral fellow and research scholar. He was "Chercheur post-doctorant" at the Laboratoire J.-L. Lions, Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris VI, France (November 2005 – October 2006). He then received a three-year post-doctoral fellowship ("assegno di ricerca") from the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Università degli Studi di Perugia, Italy (November 2006 – October 2009). After one year as post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Physics, Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", Italy (November 2009 – October 2010), he got an invitation as "Visiteur de longue durée" at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques, Bures-sur-Yvette, France (November 2010 – April 2011). He then was appointed a post-doctoral research scholarship at the Department of Mathematics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA (May 2011 – December 2011).

He served as Head of Subject for Mathematics at �ֲ��ý��Ƶ for the AY 2022/23, 2023/24 and 2024/25. He currently serves as Deputy Lead (Research and Knowledge Exchange Coordinator) for the Mathematics of Complex and Nonlinear Phenomena (MCNP) Research Group.

He is a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA) and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). He is a member of the London Mathematical Society (LMS) and has served as a member of the LMS Committee for Women and Diversity in Mathematics (2018-2026). He is a member of the Italian National Group for Mathematical Physics (GNFM) and of the Italian Mathematical Union (UMI). He serves as an External Assessor for the IMA Course Accreditation and Recognition (CAR) scheme.

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Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

Matteo Sommacal's research interests range from integrable and quasi-integrable systems to dispersive hydrodynamics and dynamical systems, with applications in nonlinear optics, fluid dynamics, BECs, plasma physics, and magnetism. In the theory of integrable systems, he has worked on the mathematical models of 1- and 2-dimensional ferromagnetic systems at the nanometre length-scale, featuring uni-axial and bi-axial anisotropy, providing the theoretical background leading to the first experimental observation of a magnetic droplet in 2013. He has also worked on the problem of linear stability of scalar and multi-component, nonlinear partial differential equations of integrable type, linking instability to the integrability structure and the Lax pairs. In the theory of dynamical systems, he is one of the proponents of a mechanism to explain the onset of complex dynamics by means of an associated Riemann surface. He also researches on the appearance of slow chaos for a circular flow on a compact Riemann surface. He currently focusses on the study of the Talanov dynamics and the rogue-wave formation mechanisms for generalised nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equations, with applications in nonlinear optics and fluid dynamics. He has attracted over £500k in external funding and supervised two PhD students to completion.

Key Publications