Roberto Cerbino

Roberto Cerbino

Professor of Experimental Soft Matter Physics
Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna

I am a physicist. With my group at the University of Vienna I use light and microscopy to measure how soft and living materials move, flow, age and break: colloids, gels, foams, and sheets of migrating cells. I co-invented Differential Dynamic Microscopy, a method that turns an ordinary microscope into a light-scattering instrument, and I take part in European experiments run in microgravity.

Biography and CV Research The SoMeX lab

Portrait of Roberto Cerbino

The pattern at the top is a simulated speckle field changing as the particles that scatter the light move. Measuring how fast such patterns change, length scale by length scale, is what Differential Dynamic Microscopy does. You can try it on the page DDM, hands on, which simulates an experiment in your browser.

Currently

  • Professor of Experimental Soft Matter Physics and head of the SoMeX lab, University of Vienna
  • Associate Editor, Soft Matter (Royal Society of Chemistry)
  • Series Editor, Soft and Biological Matter (Springer book series)
  • Section Editor, Papers in Physics
  • Member, Human Spaceflight and Exploration Science Advisory Committee, European Space Agency
  • Member, European Space Sciences Committee
  • Chair of the Board, Liquid Matter Division, European Physical Society
  • Committee member, Particle Characterisation Interest Group, Royal Society of Chemistry
  • Deputy Treasurer, Austrian Society for Rheology (OeGR)
  • Vice-Treasurer, ASSAI, Associazione per gli Scambi Scientifici Austria Italia (Austrian-Italian association for scientific exchange)
  • Vice-Dean for Teaching and International Affairs, Faculty of Physics
  • Member for the Faculty of Physics, Internationalisation Council of the University
  • Faculty member, Vienna Doctoral School in Physics

News

From the group

All news and talks

Selected publications

  1. Contact percolation governs collective motility via mechano-chemical feedback in heterogeneous breast cancer

    L. Barzaghi, C. Mazzella, C. Guidolin, J. Ackermann, E. Bellini, A. E. Massey, ..., R. Cerbino, ..., G. Scita

    ArticleNature Communications 17, 10622 (2026)

    Research Square

  2. The Hitchhiker’s guide to differential dynamic microscopy

    E. Lattuada, F. Krautgasser, M. Lavaud, F. Giavazzi, R. Cerbino

    ReviewThe Journal of Chemical Physics 163, 161501 (2025)

    Cited 18arXivFree PDF

  3. Unjamming overcomes kinetic and proliferation arrest in terminally differentiated cells and promotes collective motility of carcinoma

    A. Palamidessi, C. Malinverno, E. Frittoli, S. Corallino, E. Barbieri, S. Sigismund, ..., R. Cerbino, G. Scita

    ArticleNature Materials 18, 1252-1263 (2019)Top 10% cited

    Cited 225bioRxivFree PDF

  4. Endocytic reawakening of motility in jammed epithelia

    C. Malinverno, S. Corallino, F. Giavazzi, M. Bergert, Q. Li, M. Leoni, ..., R. Cerbino, G. Scita

    ArticleNature Materials 16, 587-596 (2017)Top 1% cited

    Cited 367Free PDF

  5. Perspective: Differential dynamic microscopy extracts multi-scale activity in complex fluids and biological systems

    R. Cerbino, P. Cicuta

    ReviewThe Journal of Chemical Physics 147, 110901 (2017)Top 10% cited

    Cited 104Free PDF

  6. Phase behavior and critical activated dynamics of limited-valence DNA nanostars

    S. Biffi, R. Cerbino, F. Bomboi, E. M. Paraboschi, R. Asselta, F. Sciortino, T. Bellini

    ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110, 15633-15637 (2013)Top 10% cited

    Cited 301Free PDF

  7. Fractal fronts of diffusion in microgravity

    A. Vailati, R. Cerbino, S. Mazzoni, C. J. Takacs, D. S. Cannell, M. Giglio

    ArticleNature Communications 2, 290 (2011)Top 10% cited

    Cited 143Free PDF

  8. Scattering information obtained by optical microscopy: Differential dynamic microscopy and beyond

    F. Giavazzi, D. Brogioli, V. Trappe, T. Bellini, R. Cerbino

    ArticlePhysical Review E 80, 031403 (2009)

    Cited 233Free PDF

  9. Differential Dynamic Microscopy: Probing Wave Vector Dependent Dynamics with a Microscope

    R. Cerbino, V. Trappe

    ArticlePhysical Review Letters 100, 188102 (2008)Editors' Suggestion

    Cited 485arXivFree PDF

  10. X-ray-scattering information obtained from near-field speckle

    R. Cerbino, L. Peverini, M. A. C. Potenza, A. Robert, P. Bösecke, M. Giglio

    ArticleNature Physics 4, 238-243 (2008)Top 10% cited

    Cited 150

All 120 publications