Germano Iannacchione

2026 Sigma Xi Fellow

Statement

Prof. Germano Iannacchione currently serves as the WPI Chapter of Sigma Xi’s secretary from 2004 to now.  He joined Sigma Xi and has remained an active member since winning the Sigma Xi Young Faculty Research Award of the WPI Chapter in April 2004.  He was elected Sigma Xi Northeastern Region Member on Committee on Nominations, (2017- 20).  During his time as secretary for the WPI Chapter of Sigma Xi, Prof. Iannacchione managed the records of the chapter, ensured smooth communication and coordination with WPI’s administration for financial support, and helped conduct the annual the Sigma Xi at WPI awards competition.   This annual awards competition focuses on highlighting the research excellence at all levels at WPI.  Since WPI is a project-based curriculum and every WPI undergraduate must complete a Major Qualifying Project, which is a research-based senior honors thesis, the Sigma Xi awards begin with the most outstanding MQP, and include Masters, PhD, Post-doctoral, Junior Faculty, and finally Senior Faculty research awards.  It has been an honor and privilege serving Sigma Xi at WPI over these last 22 years seeing young researchers achieve their first major award recognition as well as faculty colleagues first earn recognition as a Junior Faculty, then watch them grow to later receive the Senior Faculty award.  This incredibly rewarding experience has enriched the chapter and the entire research community at WPI.  I hope to be able to continue serving in this role for many more years to come, especially as new people are inducted and new ideas emerge to strengthen the chapter and promote more effectively the highest standard in research excellence.

Biography

Germano Iannacchione is a Professor in the Physics Department at WPI, joining the faculty in August 1998, and holds a M.Sc. degree in Physics from the University of Akron (1990) and Ph.D. degree in Physics from Kent State University (1993).  He held post-doctoral research appointments in Physics at Kent State University and in Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology just before joining WPI.  Prof. Iannacchione’s research has primarily focused on phases and phase transitions in soft-condensed matter, specifically liquid crystals, polymers, and biomolecules in pure and composite systems, with a current interest in with an area of soft-matter materials, colloids/composites, and emergence far-from-equilibrium.  He has expertise in thermo-physical property experimental research using a variety of experimental techniques on order-disorder phenomena in condensed matter.   Prof. Iannacchione is known for his work on the effect of quenched random disorder on phase transitions and their critical behavior.  To date, there have been about 100 peer-reviewed publications in major journals as well as 6 book chapters there have been 11 Ph.D., 14 M.Sc., and 122 B.Sc. (senior thesis or MQP) physics students who have matured and graduated at WPI under his mentorship. 
Prof. Iannacchione is currently a research member of the Interactive Materials Design Center (iMDC) at WPI (2015- now).  He is serving on the External Advisory Committee of the National High-Magnetic Field Laboratory and as an Editor Board member for Entropy in the Non-Equilibrium Phenomena section.  He currently serves as the WPI Chapter of Sigma Xi’s secretary from 2004 to now after winning the Sigma Xi Young Faculty Research Award of the WPI Chapter in April 2004.  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.  He won the WPI Coleman Fellow, Coleman Foundation Faculty Entrepreneurship Fellows Program (2010- 11) and was elected Sigma Xi Northeastern Region Member on Committee on Nominations, (2017- 20).

Prof. Iannacchione served as a Program Director of the Condensed Matter Physics Program (2017-2020), Biomaterials Program (2018-2019), a division Expert (2020-2023), and the Division Director (2023-2026) in the Division of Materials Research under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate at the U.S. National Science Foundation.  

As an IPA Program Director in the CMP program, Prof. Iannacchione helped manage an annual budget of approximately $28M, processing about 200 proposals per year at the time, and administering over 100 awards (worth about $80M) per year.  He provided expertise and management for the “soft” side of CMP (polymers, liquid crystals, biosystems, etc.) but expanded to covering all areas of “hard” and soft” CMP, especially in FY2019 when my co-PD in CMP was detailed to another division.  During this period:

• During this period, the Soft-Condensed Matter Physics area of CMP was reorganized to better serve the various communities represented in this area.
• Established the area of “Active Matter” to coordinate research and proposal evaluation, which has since grown and doubled in activity including CMP, Solid State and Materials Chemistry (SSMC), Polymers (POL), and Biomaterials (BMAT) programs within DMR.
• Worked with the Biomaterials program and partners at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) to explore and develop join program opportunities.
From 2018-19, Prof. Iannacchione also served as the lead Program Director in the BMAT program in DMR.  The BMAT program focuses on fundamental materials research on materials from and for biology, grew steadily during this time becoming a $17M/year program with over 150 proposals per year.
• Continued the coordination with NIBIB and developed the first “Square-Table” meeting format (this mode of meeting provides structure, the sides, to bring together groups that do not normally interact or work together) to convene Materials Researchers, Synthetic Biologists, funding agencies, and regulatory agencies to explore the frontiers of at this intersection.
• Called for EAGER proposals jointly funded by the BMAT program and DMR to establish connections between NIBIB and DMR researchers.  Helped establish an NSF-NIBIB Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU).
• Served on the NSF-AFRL MOU management team representing Synthetic Biology and Materials Research.
• Established connections with the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
• Worked with the Engineering Biology Research Consortium (EBRC) to consolidate and convert the three Square-Table meeting outcomes (meeting reports and published perspective in Nature Materials, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-022-01231-3 article) into a roadmap on this area of biotechnology.

From 2020-22, Prof. Iannacchione served as a part-time Expert in DMR to continue and expand the interactions developed as a PD with the Square-Table meetings, finalized the Engineering Biology & Materials Science: A Research Roadmap for Interdisciplinary Innovation published by the Engineering Biology Research Consortium (EBRC) in 2021 that contained the first three Square-Table meeting outcomes (https://roadmap.ebrc.org/2021-roadmap-materials/), EAGER funding of DMR/NIBIB interdisciplinary research, and developed new collaboration with the National Cancer Institute around treating cancer as a living material that launched another three Square-Table meetings.  Assisted where needed in various programs to process proposals.
From 2023-26, Prof. Iannacchione served as the Division Director for DMR under MPS at NSF.  DMR was the largest division at NSF during the time of this IPA role.  DMR had an annual budget of about $330M, a leadership team of 4 (the division director, the deputy division director (DDD), staff manager, and financial manager), a support staff of 10, and about 25 program directors (being a mix of permanent federal employees and IPA rotators), plus 1 or 2 part-time experts.  The division manages a number of programs ranging from material (5) and disciplinary (3) specific single-investigator programs (under the Topical Materials Research Programs, NSF 23-612 and NSF 23-611), teams level programs (DMREF, NSF 25-508), to centers (MRSEC, NSF 26-500), to large-scale platforms (MIP, NSF 25-521), to very large-scale facilities (CHEXS, CHRNS, and NHMFL).

• During FY24, took on all supervisory duties in DMR as the DDD stepped down.  Initiated a search and completed the hiring of a new DDD and mentored candidate through the Senior Executive Service (SES) certification.
• As part of the position, co-chaired the inter-agency subcommittee of OSTP on Materials Genome Initiative (MGI) with NIST and AFRL.
• Served on NSF Steering Committees for Semiconductors (co-chair in FY24) and Quantum Initiatives.
• Served on the MPS Living Sciences Working Group as chair.
• Established the DMR Newsletter and the monthly DMR Open Hour as new outreach activities.
• Expanded NSF-NCI cooperation and established NSF-NCI MOU, completed the Square-Tables, published a perspective in Nature Reviews Bioenegineering (https://doi.org/10.1038/s44222-023-00105-w), established a Dear Colleague Letter (DCL), NSF 23-039 to connect NCI and NSF researchers (https://www.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/dcl-mps-nci-supporting-new-areas-knowledge-spark-cancer-living).
• Coordinated with the new TIP directorate to establish a DCL on Use-Inspired Creativity Extension for the Bioeconomy (UICREX-Bioeconomy), NSF 24-133, which later grew into the TTP solicitation.
• Coordinated across NSF to establish a DCL: Special Guidelines for Submitting Collaborative Proposals under U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) of India Collaborative Research Opportunities, NSF 23-139.
• Worked with AFRL to create and establish through both agencies the next version of the NSF-AFRL MOU (2.0), serving as the initial co-chair of the NSF-AFRL Steering Committee. Planned and implemented the DMR restructuring as part of an NSF wide restructuring that removed divisions from its organization chart.  The new structure preserved the DMR programs into two sections.  The Foundational Materials Research section contains nearly all the material or discipline specific programs such as the TMRP, REU, and STC, while the Advanced Materials Accelerator section contains essentially materials agnostic programs across scales (CMMT, DMREF, MRSEC, MIP, Facilities).

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.