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Matteo Bucci, the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Associate Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT, has received the 2027 MathWorks Faculty Research Innovation Fellowship (FRIF). The MIT FRIFs were established to recognize midcareer faculty members for outstanding research contributions and leadership in their fields.

Bucci’s research group studies two-phase heat transfer mechanisms in nuclear reactors and space systems. The team develops high-resolution non-intrusive diagnostics and surface-engineering techniques to enhance two-phase heat transfer. They also create machine-learning tools to accelerate data analysis and conduct autonomous heat-transfer experiments.

“I’ve always been fascinated by boiling heat transfer. It may sound like an ordinary phenomenon, but the more you study it, the more you realize how many mysteries are still hidden beneath something we observe every day,” he says. “It’s remarkable that a process so central to technologies ranging from nuclear energy and refrigeration to space exploration is still not fully understood. What I love most is that the key physics often happens at incredibly small scales, yet it determines the performance of systems that power our world.”

Bucci is also co-founder of Ferveret, a startup developing advanced cooling technologies for data centers.

“My long-term dream is not only to better understand complex thermal-fluid phenomena like boiling, but also to rethink how we make scientific discoveries in the first place,” he says. “Throughout my career, I’ve seen how advances in experimental diagnostics have given us an unprecedented window into these phenomena, yet we’ve also reached the point where no human can fully keep up with the amount and complexity of the data we generate. I believe the next revolution will come from combining physics, advanced experiments, and artificial intelligence to create laboratories that can learn, ask the next question, and guide experiments on their own.”

Bucci received his PhD in nuclear safety from the Università di Pisa in 2009 and joined the MIT faculty in 2016. He credits his time at the Institute with shaping his work.

“One of the greatest privileges of being at MIT is being surrounded every day by people who constantly challenge the way you think,” Bucci says. “It’s difficult to explain unless you’ve experienced it, but there’s an incredible concentration of curiosity, creativity, and generosity here. Conversations in the hallway often turn into new research ideas, and everyone is driven by the desire to solve meaningful problems. Working in this environment is truly invaluable, and I don’t think people outside MIT fully appreciate how special it is.”

Bucci has won several other awards for his research and teaching, including the Ruth and Joel Spira Award for Excellence in Teaching (2020), the ANS/PAI Outstanding Faculty Award (2018 and 2023), the UIT-Fluent Award (2006), the European Nuclear Education Network Award (2010), and the 2012 ANS Thermal-Hydraulics Division Award. He is the founding editor and deputy editor-in-chief of AI Thermal Fluids. He also serves as editor of Applied Thermal Engineering and works as a consultant for the nuclear industry.

“To me, this award is really about the freedom to be curious. Some of the most important scientific discoveries began as questions that seemed too speculative, too impractical, or simply too early. At the time, no one could have predicted their impact. Only years later did they become the foundation of technologies that changed the world,” Bucci says. “I think that’s one of the most exciting aspects of fundamental research. You don’t always know where the path will lead—you simply know that there’s something important to understand. Awards like the MathWorks FRIF make it possible to pursue those blue-sky ideas before there’s a clear roadmap or an obvious application.”