MISAKI OZAWA

Hello, my name is Misaki Ozawa. I am a CNRS researcher at the Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Physics (LIPhy) of the Univ. Grenoble Alpes (UGA). Additionally, I hold a junior chair position at the Multidisciplinary Institute of Artificial Intelligence (MIAI). My research interests lie in the fields of statistical physics, disordered systems, and machine learning.

If you are interested in exploring opportunities for a PhD study or a master's internship, please do not hesitate to contact me. I welcome inquiries and am happy to discuss potential research projects and the application process.

I am interested in understanding the nature of glass and the phenomenon of the glass transition. We use glass every day – it's an essential part of our daily lives. Actually, glass is one of the oldest materials produced by humanity, with its origins dating back to about 5000 years ago, even before the era of iron! When you look at the microscopic structure of glass, it appears liquid-like. Yet, at a macroscopic level, as we experience daily, glass behaves like a solid. Despite over 70 years of intensive research, we still lack a clear understanding of its true nature. Is glass simply a liquid with such high viscosity that it can effectively be considered a solid? Or does glass reflect a unique thermodynamic phase? This question presents a big challenge in modern physics.

I am also interested in interdisciplinary studies between physics and machine learning. Nowadays, machine learning is becoming a powerful tool for physicists to analyze various physics problems. Conversely, the concepts and techniques developed in physics help us uncover the mystery behind the outstanding performance of machine learning architectures (such as deep neural networks), which have been considered as black boxes. Currently, we are developing machine learning methods inspired by statistical physics, making synergy between physics and machine learning.