Mathias Casiulis

Simons Foundation, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology

Papers

Total Citations

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About

Mathias Casiulis is a theoretical physicist whose research lies at the intersection of active matter, statistical physics, and collective behavior. His work focuses on understanding how simple, local interactions between self-propelled particles—whether biological organisms or engineered robots—give rise to complex, large-scale emergent phenomena such as flocking, synchronization, and cluster formation. Casiulis’s major contributions include deriving a fundamental geometric condition for robot-swarm cohesion, introducing the concept of “curvity”—an intrinsic signed parameter with units of curvature that predicts cluster–flock transitions in active systems. This work, published in 2025 and already garnering 10 citations, provides a first-principles design rule for controlling swarm size. In another highly cited study (7 citations), he demonstrated that purely repulsive, self-navigating particles can spontaneously synchronize and flock, challenging the long-held assumption that attraction is necessary for collective motion. This insight has implications for understanding animal groups and designing decentralized robotic swarms. With a growing citation record and a knack for uncovering elegant physical principles behind complex behaviors, Casiulis is establishing himself as a leading voice in active matter theory. His work offers both deep theoretical insight and practical design rules for engineers, making him a researcher to watch in the field of collective dynamics.