Germano Iannacchione is a Professor in the Physics Department at WPI, joining the faculty in August 1998. He and his students conduct experimental research on order-disorder phenomena in condensed matter, with a focus on soft-matter materials, colloids/composites, and emergence far-from-equilibrium. He has graduated 10 Ph.D., 14 M.Sc., and 121 B.Sc. (senior thesis) physics students over the 22 years at WPI.
He served as a Program Director of the Condensed Matter Physics Program (2017-2020), Biomaterials Program (2018-2019), and currently as an Expert (2020- now) in the Division of Materials Research under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate at the National Science Foundation. He is currently a research member of the Interactive Materials Design Center (iMDC) at WPI (2015- now). He was the founding Director of the Nuclear Science and Engineering Program between Physics, Mechanical Engineering, and Civil Engineering from 2012 to 2017. He was involved with the founding of the STEM Education Center at WPI and the founding Director of the Master of Science in Physics for Educators Program (MPED) from 2012 to 2016. While Head of Physics at WPI from 2006 to 2016, the department expanded from 13 to 20 full-time faculty, increased external research funding from $0.3M to over $2M under contract, and tripled the number of graduate students. During the same period, he established various out-reach activities such as the annual R.H. Goddard Cup Water Rocket Competition, the first Physics summer camp (Physicspalooza) that has expanded to now four Physics summer camps for 5-12th graders and lead the Sigma Xi chapter of WPI as its secretary (2007- now). Germano has incorporated undergraduate students undertaking research in his lab, both as individual research experiences and as teams through WPI’s Major Qualifying Projects (MQPs), equivalent to a senior honors thesis. Undergraduate and graduate alumni have found careers in academia, industry, and government. In addition, Germano has been involved in the establishment of the STEM Faculty Launch Workshop program in 2015 and again lead the effort in 2016, that provided mentoring for a diverse group of ABD graduate students and post-doctoral fellows seeking a career in academia.
