'When in Rome, do as the Romans do'- says the proverb. Giuesppe Habib attained an Italian top university in Rome, but, because he was mesmerised by Budapest, did his Erasmus scolarship and PhD at BME Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. Later, he returned to Hungary as a researcher, and today works as a senior lecturer at the Department of Applied Mechanics of the faculty. Interview.
You graduated as a mechanical
engineer at the La Sapienza University of Rome in 2008. Why did you choose
Mechanical Engineering?
Since when I was in high school, I was
fascinated by the possibility of predicting the dynamics of physical objects by
using mathematics. This made me love physics and in particular mechanics. When
I had to choose which university to go to, I was undecided between mechanical engineering
and physics, what I knew is that I wanted to deal with mechanics. In the end, I
chose mechanical engineering because it gives more job opportunities.
After obtaining your master
in mechanical engineering, you did not start immediately a PhD. What did you do
in the meantime and why you decide to go back to academia?
After obtaining my master’s degree I was
pondering the possibility of starting a Ph.D. However, I wanted to see first how
is working in industry. I then worked for two different companies as a
mechanical designer, first in Rome and then in Budapest, but in neither of them
I was fully satisfied with my job. My feeling was that most of my knowledge
acquired during my bachelor and master was not really useful for the engineering
practice, in particular, regarding mathematical methods. After one year in
industry, my mathematical knowledge was quickly going back to my level at the
beginning of my university studies. This motivated me to return to academia and
start a Ph.D. This clearly showed me that the theoretical level reached in
university engineering studies is rarely required by most engineering
companies.
You came to Hungary during
your Master with an Erasmus scholarship. Why did you choose Hungary?
Few months before choosing my destination, I
spent a weekend in Budapest. I was really thrilled by the life here and I
realized that Budapest could be an excellent destination for spending an
Erasmus. Regarding the university, the BME provides a lot of courses in
English, which are well described on the faculty website. However, to be honest,
Erasmus was not mainly about following courses at the university. Apart from
that, the amount of the Erasmus scholarship did not depend on the destination;
considering life cost in Budapest at that time I had the possibility to keep a
quite good standard of living out of the scholarship.
What was your
impression of life here?
I had a great time in Budapest, especially
during my Erasmus! I really love the vibe of Budapest, for me one of the best
in the world. I think Budapest is the perfect place for spending university
studies. Many people speak about the pessimism of Hungarian; well, I never had
that impression in Budapest. I rather see a strong will to live, especially in
young people.
Later, why did you
come here as a researcher?
I started my Ph.D. in La Sapienza, in Rome. However, I wanted to spend some time also in
Budapest, where my girlfriend (now my wife) was living. Therefore, I managed to
establish a formal collaboration between the two universities. Practically, my
Ph.D. became a sort of double Ph.D. and I was enrolled as a student both at La
Sapienza and at BME. In this way, I could spend roughly half of the time in Budapest
and half in Rome. During my Ph.D., I became aware of the high quality of
scientific work done here. However, once I was done with the Ph.D., I decided
to move to another country in order to have a new experience both
professionally and from a personal point of view. I found a good opportunity
for a postdoc position in Liege, Belgium, where I spent three years. Although I
had a very good time there, I decided to go back to Budapest or to Rome, mainly
in order to be close either to my family or to my wife’s family. Finally, I
managed to get a position in Budapest thanks to a Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Individual Fellowship, which provided me salary and research expenses for two
years. Apart from that, I already knew the work environment in Budapest and the
excellent scientific level reached by the Department of Applied Mechanics. So I
was very happy both professionally and personally.
What is your field of
research in Mechanics?
Mainly, I deal with nonlinear dynamics and in
particular, I worked a lot in the field of vibration mitigation. It is not easy
to explain what it means to not expert but I will try. Engineering works by
making assumptions of reality and by building simplified physical and
mathematical models. In dynamics, most of these models are assumed linear,
because this allows to significantly simplify them and it enables engineers to
easily make predictions about the system behaviour. In some cases, the
assumption of 'linearity' is not valid anymore and linear models can miss some
important aspects. In these cases, it is required to use nonlinear models,
which are much more complicated to handle. In simple words, we can say that my
job is to deal with these nonlinear models and try to make predictions about
the dynamics of engineering nonlinear systems.
A practical example that can show the
importance of nonlinear models is given, for instance, by towed trailers. Let’s
consider a certain towed trailer with some given load conditions and a fixed
velocity. In most cases, linear models predict that the system is stable,
meaning that the trailer will be at its place behind the car. However, a proper
nonlinear model might show that, if the trailer undergoes a relatively large
perturbation, for instance a wind gust, it might start to oscillate right and left
until it will eventually capsize causing an accident. Indeed, these kinds of
accidents are quite common.
What are your plans
for the future?
My plan is to stay here in Budapest, however
you never know what will happen and where life brings you. As a researcher, I
guess it sounds quite obvious, but my objective is to do something really
relevant for science and, hopefully, which can have an impact also on people’s
life.
László Benesóczky
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