Raffaello Potestio graduated in Theoretical Physics from the University of Rome "La Sapienza" in 2006. In the same year he enrolled in a PhD course in Statistical Physics at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA-ISAS) in Trieste, where in 2010 he defended a PhD Thesis on Coarse-grained models of protein structure and interactions. In November 2010 he joined K. Kremer's group at MPIP as a postdoc, and became Project Leader in August 2013.

His main research interest are the development and application of coarse-grained models and methodologies for soft matter, in particular biologically relevant systems. The two-sided, complementary goal of this approach is to understand the most fundamental and/or universal features of a system and, at the same time, to improve the computational efficiency of a simulation. Particular prominence is given to adaptive resolution simulation techniques, which allow the concurrent modeling of a diffusive system (e.g. water) with different levels of accuracy in different regions of the simulation box. A second, parallel research line is the study of equilibrium and non-equilibrium properties of self-entangled (that is, knotted) biopolymers, such as proteins and DNA filaments. 

The abstract of his lecture can be read here.