Margherita De Marzio, PhD
Research Areas: Mechanogenomics; Epithelial migration; Asthma; Unjamming; Vertex Models; Networks; Multi-omics
Dr. De Marzio received a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in theoretical physics from Sapienza University of Rome. She later received a Ph.D. in physics from Roma Tre University with a thesis on the dynamical properties of complex metastable fluids. Dr. De Marzio was a postdoctoral fellow at M.I.T. in the group of Bin Zhang, where she investigated the 3D structure of the genome through Molecular Dynamics Simulations and theoretical models. After that, she was a postdoctoral fellow in the group of Dr. Scott Weiss (Brigham and Women’s Hospital – BWH) and Jeffrey J. Fredberg (Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health – HSPH). During this research experience, she focused her studies on the physics and genomics of the epithelial unjamming transition. Since 2023, Dr. De Marzio has been a faculty at BWH and Harvard Medical School. Her research interests lie at the intersection between computational biology, network science, and statistical physics. Dr. De Marzio’s scientific goal is to understand how cellular genomic cues coordinate the plasticity and migratory behavior of the airway epithelium. Her lab is particularly interested in the mechanogenetic mechanisms connecting epithelial transcriptional patterns, mechanical phenotypes, and clinical outcomes in respiratory diseases. To elucidate these mechanisms, Dr. De Marzio combines a rich set of multidisciplinary approaches, including cell-based biophysical models, multi-omics data analysis, and network science models. Dr. De Marzio is the recipient of an NIH K25 award. Her group collaborates with theorists and experimentalists at BWH, HSPH, Northeastern University, and M.I.T.