Physics Professor Emanuela Del Gado Named a 2025 AAAS Fellow
Emanuela Del Gado, a professor of physics in the College of Arts & Sciences and the director of the Institute for Soft Matter Synthesis and Metrology (ISMSM), has been named a 2025 American Association for the Advancement of the Sciences (AAAS) Fellow. In her research, Del Gado uses computer simulations, statistical analysis and theory, to investigate how soft materials can flow, fracture and adapt, starting from their microscopic components.
The AAAS is one of the world’s largest general scientific societies and publisher of the Science family of journals. Each year, AAAS Fellows are selected for their achievements across disciplines that include research, teaching, administration in academia and communicating and interpreting science to the public. Founded in 1848, the AAAS has more than 120,000 members and began honoring AAAS Fellows in 1874.
According to AAAS historical records, nearly 50 Georgetown University faculty members have been named AAAS Fellows since 1925.
“I am delighted and humbled by this recognition of my work,” Del Gado said. “The AAAS is one of the most important organizations in the sciences. I admire their mission and their goals. I am especially grateful to the students, graduates and undergraduates, and the post-doctoral researchers I have had the chance to work with over these years, as it is our common work that is being recognized.”
Del Gado joined Georgetown faculty in 2014 and is one of the 28 members selected this year in the physics section of the 2025 AAAS Fellows. Larry Millstein, an adjunct professor for Georgetown University Medical Center, was also named a 2025 AAAS Fellow in the section of general interest in science and engineering.
Two other professors in Georgetown’s Department of Physics, James Freericks and Kai Liu, have been previously honored as AAAS Fellows. Del Gado was named a fellow this year “for distinguished contributions to the field of soft materials focused on gels, glasses and other soft amorphous solids using computational statistical physics.”
“This is a wonderful recognition of the interdisciplinary nature of Emanuela’s work and its scientific impact beyond physics,” said Paola Barbara, professor and chair of the physics department. “Her studies tackle complicated systems, soft materials with complex microstructure, using statistical and computation physics to solve engineering problems, from tuning mechanical properties of network gels, to sustainable production of cement, to design of materials with desired functionalities.”
Del Gado said the opportunity to “understand things that appear difficult and mysterious” drew her to the physics field.
Physics helps “reveal the logic and the functioning of the world around us, developing ideas that can have far reaching implications, beyond physics, for technologies, artificial intelligence and even social systems,” Del Gado said.