Computational Approaches in Physics

Maria Fyta studied physics at the University of Crete in Greece, where she obtained her Masters and PhD degree in physics with a specialization in solid state and computational physics under the guidance of P C Kelires. During her graduate studies, she used classical and semi-empirical computational methods, such as Monte Carlo and tight-binding molecular dynamics to study the stability, elastic and mechanical properties of nanostructured carbon. In 2005 she moved to Harvard University as a postdoctoral fellow in the group of E Kaxiras, where she was involved in materials and biophysics related projects, ranging from defects in materials up to the dynamic and electronic behavior of DNA. The computational tools used in these projects were extended to quantum-mechanical schemes, such as techniques based on density functional theory, as well as multiscale schemes based on coupled atomistic and mesoscopic schemes. In 2008 she joined the group of R Netz at the Technical University of Munich, where she was also a Marie Curie fellow. In this group, she turned to atomistic molecular dynamics and the development of atomistic force fields. In 2012 she accepted an offer for a junior professorship from the University of Stuttgart in Germany. Since 2012 she has been affiliated with the Institute for Computational Physics at the University of Stuttgart, where she uses a variety of computational tools to tackle problems in condensed matter physics/materials science and biophysics. Specifically, her field of interests involves nanopores for sensing devices, chemically modified nanostructures, materials with defects, self-assembled monolayers, biofunctionalized materials, as well as the mechanical and electronic properties of biomolecules and their behavior in solutions.