PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Paris Perdikaris

Also known as Paris G. Perdikaris

Paris Perdikaris is a computational scientist whose work puts physical laws inside neural networks and scales them up to foundation models of the Earth system. He earned a diploma in naval architecture and marine engineering in Athens in 2009, a doctorate in applied mathematics at Brown University in 2015, and spent 2015 to 2017 as a postdoctoral researcher at MIT. With Maziar Raissi and George Karniadakis he introduced physics-informed neural networks in a 2017 preprint, and he received the DOE Early Career Award in 2018, the AFOSR Young Investigator Award in 2019 and the SIAG/CSE Early Career Prize in 2021. By 2024 he was also a Principal Researcher Manager at Microsoft Research AI for Science, and in 2025 he and collaborators there published Aurora, a foundation model for the Earth system, in Nature. He is an associate professor of mechanical engineering and applied mechanics at the University of Pennsylvania.

Works
163
Citations
46,261
h-index
52
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2009–2015

    Athens diploma and Brown PhD

    He receives a diploma in naval architecture and marine engineering from the National Technical University of Athens in 2009. He then earns a master's degree from Brown University in 2010 and a doctorate in applied mathematics there in 2015.

  2. 2015–2017

    Postdoctoral researcher at MIT

    He works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2015 to 2017.

  3. 2017–2018

    Physics-informed neural networks

    In 2017, he posts the preprint "Physics Informed Deep Learning (Part I)" with Maziar Raissi and George Karniadakis, which introduces neural networks trained to solve supervised learning tasks while respecting physical laws given by nonlinear partial differential equations. The Journal of Computational Physics version of the work appears in November 2018.

  4. 2018–2019

    DOE and AFOSR early career awards

    He receives the DOE Early Career Award in 2018 and the AFOSR Young Investigator Award in 2019.

  5. 2020–2021

    Advising award and SIAM prize

    In March 2020, he accepts the Ford Motor Company Award for Faculty Advising at Penn. In 2021, the SIAM Activity Group on Computational Science and Engineering gives him its Early Career Prize for his work on machine learning with Gaussian processes and neural networks, and he also receives a Scialog Fellowship.

  6. By 2024

    A role at Microsoft Research

    By 2024, he is a Principal Researcher Manager at Microsoft Research AI for Science while remaining an associate professor at Penn. He gives an invited talk in the NeurIPS 2024 workshop "Foundation Models for Science: Progress, Opportunities, and Challenges".

  7. May 2025

    Aurora in Nature

    Nature publishes "A foundation model for the Earth system" in May 2025. The paper presents Aurora, built by him and collaborators at Microsoft Research and trained on more than one million hours of diverse geophysical data; it outperforms operational forecasts for air quality, ocean waves, tropical cyclone tracks and high-resolution weather. The model predicts the landfall of 2023's Typhoon Doksuri in the northern Philippines four days ahead of the event.

  8. As of October 2026

    Associate professor at Penn

    He is an associate professor of mechanical engineering and applied mechanics at the University of Pennsylvania, with research that spans foundation models for Earth system modeling, physics-informed neural networks and neural operators, generative models, and uncertainty quantification for sequential decision making. He gives a University of Delaware seminar on Aurora, a foundation model for the Earth system, in April 2026.

Career

  1. Since 2015University of PennsylvaniaAssociate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics
  2. 2024–2025MicrosoftPrincipal Researcher Manager
  3. 2015–2017Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyPostdoctoral researcher

Education

  1. 2015Brown UniversityDoctorate in applied mathematics
  2. 2010Brown UniversityMaster's degree
  3. 2009National Technical University of AthensDiploma in naval architecture and marine engineering

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Most-cited works

  1. Physics-informed neural networks: A deep learning framework for solving forward and inverse problems involving nonlinear partial differential equations2018 · Journal of Computational Physics · 20,045 citations
  2. Physics-informed machine learning2021 · Nature Reviews Physics · 8,525 citations
  3. Understanding and Mitigating Gradient Flow Pathologies in Physics-Informed Neural Networks2021 · SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing · 2,071 citations
  4. When and why PINNs fail to train: A neural tangent kernel perspective2021 · Journal of Computational Physics · 1,514 citations
  5. Physics-Informed Neural Networks for Heat Transfer Problems2021 · ASME Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer · 1,322 citations

From OpenAlex, as of 21 October 2026.

  1. 16% of AI career moves in the 2020s went from a university to a companyIncludes Paris Perdikaris. We estimate that 16% of AI career moves in the 2020s went from a university to a company; 29% of moves starting at a university went to a company, and 76% ended the university role.
  2. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes University of Pennsylvania. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  3. People shaping AI work at a median of 3 organizations over a career: 3 for university starters and institute and lab starters, versus 2 for company startersIncludes University of Pennsylvania. Across 6,853 people shaping AI with a dated work role, we estimate a median of 3 parent organizations over a career (mean 3.6), comparing role groups, starting sectors and starting decades from the 1950s to 2020–2026.
  4. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Paris Perdikaris yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Penn Engineering 2020 Teaching Awards engineering.upenn.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. Paris Perdikaris – GRASP Lab grasp.upenn.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. Physics Informed Deep Learning (Part I): Data-driven Solutions of Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations arxiv.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. Physics-informed neural networks: A deep learning framework for solving forward and inverse problems involving nonlinear partial differential equations (Journal Article) | OSTI.GOV osti.gov. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. Professor Paris Perdikaris accepts the Ford Motor Company Award for Faculty Advising - Penn Institute for Computational Science pics.upenn.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. Paris Perdikaris Wins SIAM Early Career Prize | Penn Engineering engineering.upenn.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. NeurIPS Invited Talk 1: Paris Perdikaris nips.cc. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. A foundation model for the Earth system | Nature nature.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  9. Cloudy with a Chance of Lifesaving and More Cost-Effective Weather Predictions – MEAM Stories @ Penn Engineering blog.me.upenn.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  10. CIS Seminar Series 2026 - Paris Perdikaris, Ph.D.-University of Pennsylvania - University of Delaware events.udel.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.