Anna Scotti is associate professor in Numerical Analysis at the Department of Mathematics of Politecnico di Milano. Let’s hear something about her story and research interests.
“After high school it has ben difficult to choose which degree to pursue because, luckily or unluckily, I seemed to like everything: science, design, foreign languages… Eventually I chose Aerospace Engineering, and I would do it again because this degree gave me a solid background in engineering, a knowledge of fluid dynamics and, above all, the occasion to get to know numerical methods, that later became my job.
After the master I moved to the Department of Mathematics to do a Phd on a topic that at the time was completely new for me: the simulation of geological porous media.
The study, by means of numerical methods, of the processes happening in the subsurface such as fluid flow, elastic deformations, fractures and chemical reactions has been a huge part of my research from that moment on. Geosciences is a field where the possibility to perform simulations, “virtual experiments”, is crucial because it’s very difficult and expensive to perform real experiments with the time and space scales at hand. Moreover, if in the past research in this field was mainly motivated by the exploitation of fossil fuels, nowadays the study of the subsurface is of paramount importance to develop technologies for climate change mitigation such as the long term storage of carbon dioxide, and to guarantee that these operations are effective and safe. For this reason in the past two years I have coordinated a joint project with colleagues from UniMiB, UniBa, PoliTo, to study the risk of fault reactivation caused by human activities, when injection and production of fluid can alter the stress state in the subsurface.
For what concerns the methods a large part of my research is focused on the development and application of numerical methods that are reliable and computationally cheap when we need to consider complex geometries: for instance a layered material, or a domain that contains fractures of inclusions with different physical properties. I have worked with methods such as the eXtended Finite Element and Virtual Element that, compared to the “traditional” Finite Element Method, allow for more flexibility in these cases. Moreover I developed mixed dimensional models where equations are written and solved in domains of different dimensions coupled together: 2D and 1D, 3D and 1D and so on, to be able to represent in a cheap but still accurate way thin geometries like a fault or a well.
The thing I like the most about my job is… all of it, or, let’s say, the opportunity to work on a project from start to finish: from sitting down with the expert to understand the problem, to choosing the mathematical model and the most suitable numerical method, to spending hours coding to finally sit down again with the expert to discuss results.
Another aspect that I love is teaching, and in the past year I stepped out of my comfort zone to work at the production of a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) that combines coding, modeling e numerical methods, starting from real life problems.
I think that our job as researchers is fascinating, and both challenging and rewarding, but it’s also very easy to fall victims of the impostor syndrome and feel inadequate in such a competitive environment. My advice for a young researcher who is just beginning is to remember that “comparison is the thief of joy”, and that having background, skills and strong points that are different from the rest is an asset and not a limit.