Carla Molteni

Molteni studied physics at the University of Milan.^[4] She remained there for her graduate studies.^[4] She was originally interested in particle physics, but became more fascinated by material science as she became aware of its impact in designing materials of the future.^[5]

Molteni joined Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research^[when?] as a postdoctoral research fellow, working on crystalline glucose.^[6] She used the Car–Parrinello molecular dynamics method to study glucose.^[7]

Molteni joined the University of Cambridge in 1999 as an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Advanced Research Fellow.^[4][8] She was a fellow at New Hall, (now Murray Edwards College)^[9] Cambridge.

In 2003 Molteni was appointed a professor of soft matter physics at King's College London.^[5] Molteni is a member of the Thomas Young Centre and London Centre for Nanotechnology.^[10] She uses density functional theory and classical methods to understand systems such as grain boundaries, liquid crystals, polymers and proteins.^[10] She studied polyamorphism in nanocrystals of silicon.^[11] Her group have used computational methods to evaluate the interactions of green tea with cardiac muscle and the growth of hexagonal ice.^[12][13] They identified the excited states of biological chromophores using many-body perturbation theory.^[14][3] She studied the pressure-induced deformations of nanomaterials and how this impacted their optoelectronic properties.^[15] Understanding piezochromic effects is important to determine the potential of a material for applications such as stress sensors.^[15]

In 2018 she awarded the Italy Made Me prizes for young Italian researchers in the UK.^[16] She serves on the board of directors of the Association of Italian Scientists in the UK.^[17] She has taken part in Pint of Science.^[18]