Maria Andolfatto

Maria Andolfatto was born and raised in Bergamo, in Northern Italy, where she attended
high school before enrolling in physics at the University of Milano Bicocca. After a bachelor’s in general physics, she chose solid state matter physics for her master’s, and after realizing theoretical work suited her much more than experiments, she decided to do her thesis on a computational physics project – which has led her to Nicola Marzari’s lab at EPFL thanks to an INSPIRE Potentials fellowship.

Interview by Nicola Nosengo, NCCR MARVEL on 17 March 2025

Have you always been interested in science?

I guess so. Before high school I didn't even know what physics was, but I remember that since I was a child I was passionate about experiments, the weird potions that you make in kindergarten when you pretend to be a chemist, or the experiments that a very good teacher did in elementary school. I have a lot of memories about science from my early school days, not so much about the literary part, and I guess that was a sign. Then I had a very good professor of mathematics and physics in high school, and I had a few friends who were already studying physics, and I noticed I had the same approach to problems that they had. So, choosing physics at university came naturally.

How did you hear about the INSPIRE Potentials Program?

One of my professors in Milan is Davide Campi, who was previously a MARVEL member in Nicola Marzari’s laboratory. When the moment came to choose my thesis, he suggested that I used this opportunity to come here.

What is the topic of your master’s project?

I work with Junfeng Quiao, who has created a database of Wannierized 3D materials. Wannierisation allows us to calculate their polarization. I start from this database, take materials with different polarization, and create heterostructures with two bulks that can grow on top of each other because they have a lattice match. The interesting thing is that, even if the two materials by themselves are insulators, at the interface conductive states can appear because a 2-D electron gas is created. The plan is to do a high-throughput screening of these heterostructures to test which ones have the electron gas at the interface. Most heterostructures with polarization differences studied so far are perovskites, but the database we have allows me to study also many other materials. The database includes materials that have been experimentally confirmed, but for which the combination has not been studied yet. In essence, I have created a code that generates the heterostructures by trying all possible interfaces and selects the best one for each combination of materials, discarding the ones that would not be feasible experimentally, and an AiiDA workflow to test them. In principle, the materials we will look at could be interesting for energy applications, for spintronics, nanosensors, and potentially for topological quantum computers. I hope the work can result both in a publication and in an open-source workflow that others can use.

Do you think women face specific challenges in the sciences?

The shortage of women in this field is very evident. In my bachelor’s in physics the situation was not so bad, women were at least 30 percent of the course. But when I went to the solid-state physics master’s, the percentage of women went down. At least in my university, more women go into astrophysics or into experimental physics. Solid state physics and computational physics apparently do not attract many women, I don’t know why. But that’s something I’m used to dealing with because I play chess, where there is the same gender imbalance. I’ve never felt penalized because I am a woman, and this very fellowship is an incredible opportunity that I got because I am a woman. But you do miss more female presences in the group, you miss friendships and the opportunity to compare your experiences.

Any advice for young girls interested in science?

I have one piece of advice: do not be afraid of asking, about everything – opportunities, explanations. People are generally available, so don’t hold back.

What are your plans for the future?

I want to do a PhD, but I don’t know where yet. Here in Switzerland the environment is excellent. You have everything you need for your research. I have my own office, something I would not get in Italy before becoming associate professor. You can attend incredible conferences and courses. That said, you can do great things in Italy as well, or in other places. I am interested in staying in academia, but let’s see how it goes.