Mattia Mattei

PhD Programme: Computer Science and Mathematics of Security
Research group: ALEPHYSIS – ALgorithms Embedded in PHYsical Systems
Supervisors: Sergio Gómez Jiménez & Alex Arenas Moreno

Bio

Mattia Mattei obtained his bachelor and master degrees in physics, respectively in October 2018 and October 2020 at University of Salento, Lecce, Italy. Since his master thesis he started to delve into the world of complex networks, combining statistical physics and network science in the project "Real-world networks and statistical physics: an entropy-based approach. The study of the semantic network from Twitter about Covid-19 epidemic". His interest in disinformation spreading on social networks led him to win a one-year research grant at IMT School for Advanced Studies in Lucca (Italy), provided by the TOFFEe (TOol for Fighting FakEs) project, in December 2020. During this stay, he could keep studying disinformation on Twitter using network science and physics tools. In October 2021 he was able to visit the Alephsys Lab research group at URV, shifting his attention to epidemics. Eventually, he could extend his stay at URV, currently working as PhD student in the same research group.

Project: Modeling of the interaction between epidemic spreading and social dynamics

The general topic of the PhD thesis is the building of mathematical models that could describe the interaction between social behaviour and epidemic spreading, using tools from statistical physics and computational techniques. The Covid-19 epidemic has indeed highlighted the necessity of carrying out quantitative analysis also about all those non-pharmaceutical interventions, like lockdowns, mobility restrictions or the closing of specific activities, whose role was crucial for the containment of the disease spreading. A deeper insight into the bilateral correlation between people behaviour and epidemic spreading is needed and it could surely help policy makers in their decision. We will use analytical models and numerical simulations, carefully handling different kind of data from different sources.

Open Acess publications

• Mattia Mattei, Rosa M. Pintó, Susana Guix, Albert Bosch, Alex Arenas (2023). Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater for prevalence estimation and investigating clinical diagnostic test biases. Water Research, Volume 242, 120223. View full-text