Luca Cocconi is an Oppenheimer Fellow based at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. He is a theoretical physicist working on the statistical mechanics of bio-inspired active matter, with a particular interest in the fundamental physical constraints underlying the functioning of micro-machines operating far from thermodynamic equilibrium.

Before joining the Cavendish, Luca was a Humboldt fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen. He completed his PhD in Applied Mathematics at Imperial College and The Francis Crick Institute in London. Before that, he obtained an Msci in Theoretical Physics, also from Imperial College.

Luca’s current research focuses on developing minimal analytically tractable models of “smart” active agents and materials, defined as physical systems capable of integrating self-actuation with the recording, processing and/or relaying of information at the local level.