Matteo Sommacal is an expert in nonlinear waves, integrable systems and dynamical systems. In the theory of integrable systems, he mainly works on the mathematical models of 1- and 2-dimensional ferromagnetic systems at the nanometre length-scale, featuring uni-axial and bi-axial anisotropy, and on the problem of linear stability of scalar and multi-component, nonlinear partial differential equations of integrable type. In the theory of dynamical systems, he is one of the proponents of a mechanism to explain the onset of complex dynamics by means of an associated Riemann surface. He also researches on the appearance of slow chaos for a circular flow on a compact Riemann surface.

Matteo Sommacal was born in Roma, Italy, on November 18, 1977. Currently, he is Senior Lecturer in Applied Mathematics in the Department of Mathematics, Physics and Electrical Engineering at Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, where he arrived in January 2012. He earned a M.Sc. in Physics at the Università degli studi di Roma "La Sapienza", Italy (2002). Subsequently, he received a Ph.D. in Mathematical Physics at the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, with Professor Francesco Calogero as advisor (2005), discussing the thesis "The Transition from Regular to Irregular Motions, Explained as Travel on Riemann Surfaces".

After the Ph.D. studies, he got several academic positions as post-doctoral fellow and research scholar. He was "Chercheur post-doctorant" at the Laboratoire J.-L. Lions, Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris VI, France (November 2005 – October 2006). He then received a three-year post-doctoral fellowship ("assegno di ricerca") from the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Università degli Studi di Perugia, Italy (November 2006 – October 2009). After one year as post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Physics, Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", Italy (November 2009 – October 2010), he got an invitation as "Visiteur de longue durée" at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques, Bures-sur-Yvette, France (November 2010 – April 2011). He then was appointed a post-doctoral research scholarship at the Department of Mathematics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA (May 2011 – December 2011).

He currently serves as Head of Subject for Mathematics.