Cecilia Clementi


Cecilia Clementi is an Italian-American scientist who specialises in the simulation of biomolecules. She is a Professor of Theoretical and Computational Biophysics at the Free University of Berlin. She was previously a Professor of Chemistry at the Rice University and co-director of the National Science Foundation Molecular Sciences Software Institute. From 2017 to 2019, she held an Einstein Foundation fellowship.
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Early life and education

Clementi is from Italy. She studied physics at the University of Florence, where she earned her Laurea in 1995. After graduating in physics, Clementi moved to the International School for Advanced Studies for her doctoral degree. Clementi was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Diego, where she was part of the La Jolla Interfaces in Science programme. After completing her postdoctoral research Clementi was appointed as an assistant professor at Rice University.

Research and career

In 2009 Clementi was made a Professor of Chemistry at Rice University. Her research considers the simulation of complex biophysical processes using large-scale data sets. She specializes in coarse-grain modeling of macromolecular systems. In 2016, Clementi was made co-director of the National Science Foundation Molecular Sciences Software Institute.
Clementi joined the Free University of Berlin in 2017 as an Einstein Foundation fellow, during which she focused on the multi-scale modelling of biophysical systems in an effort to better understand cellular functions. She was the first Einstein Foundation fellow to be appointed to their Strategic Professorships Program.
Clementi was made a Professor of Physics at the Free University of Berlin in June 2020.
More recently, Clementi has collaborated with others to use a machine-learning model to navigate protein landscapes.

Awards and honours

Selected publications

Underwater photography

Clementi is also a scuba divemaster and underwater photographer. Some of her photographs are shown in her Instagram page