I am trained as a mathematician and I work as a lecturer in the Mechanical Engineering Department at ETH Zurich.

I'm part of the Frazzoli group at the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control.

My focus is applied category theory, a branch of mathematics that formalizes general-purpose patterns of interconnection, composition, relation and translation, and puts these to use across a wide range of disciplines. This mathematics is particularly well-suited to systemic thinking, and it accomodates intuitive diagrammatic representations that are rigorous and computational.

Currently I am mainly teaching and working on monotone co-design theory. This is a flexible mathematical framework for modelling and optimizing complex systems built up of interconnected components which each require and provide resources.

Before becoming inspired about applied category theory, I worked in (pure) category theory, representation theory, and symplectic & Poisson geometry.

I teach the following two classes at ETH Zurich each year:
Applied Category Theory for Engineering I (fall semester)
Applied Category Theory for Engineering II (spring semester).

I also (co)mentor semester theses, master's thesis, and reading courses.

It is important to me to create supportive environments for learning and collaboration; see my teaching statement and diversity statement, as well as Eugenia Cheng's manifesto for inclusivity.

Andrea Censi, Gioele Zardini, and I are writing a textbook on applied category theory which is aimed towards practitioners and learners in applied fields, in particular in engineering. We have also created a website with a selection of useful resources for learning about applied category theory.

I serve on the scientific board advising the CODEWIND research project about community-oriented co-design for wind-energy, and I serve on the administrative board for the Demos Institute.

Teaser video: Why category theory for engineering?

Applied category theory

• Categorification of Negative Information using Enrichment (paper with A. Censi, E. Frazzoli, G. Zardini)

Duality involutions on categories and bicategories

• Duality Involutions, Representations, and Geometry (my PhD thesis)
• Morita bicategories of algebras and duality involutions (paper with A. Valentino)

Classification problems in symplectic geometry

• (Co)isotropic triples and poset representations (paper with C. Herrmann, A. Weinstein)
• Decomposition of (co)isotropic relations (paper with A. Weinstein)
• (Co)isotropic pairs in Poisson and presymplectic vector spaces (paper with A. Weinstein)