---
title: "Barbara Bravi"
type: "entity"
entity_kind: "person"
status: "hub"
writer_model: "claude-opus-4-8"
canonical_name: "Barbara Bravi"
aliases: []
first_seen: "2026-07-15T00:00:00.000Z"
connects_to: ["direct coupling analysis","protein coevolution","evolved allosteric materials","epistasis","statistical inference"]
---


Statistical physicist working at the interface of inference methods and biological sequence data, and lead author of the paper that first applied Direct Coupling Analysis to evolved allosteric mechanical networks (Bravi, Ravasio, Brito & Wyart, "Direct coupling analysis of epistasis in allosteric materials," PLoS Comput. Biol. 16(3):e1007630, 2020; arXiv:1811.10480). She matters to this vault as the author carrying its sequence-side physics↔protein-coevolution bridge — the anchor of the DCA-epistasis cluster below.

## References

- [[claim-bravi-2020-applies-dca-to-evolved-allosteric-networks-as-synthetic-msa]] — the bridge: evolved networks as a synthetic protein alignment, DCA applied directly.
- [[claim-dca-predicts-mutation-costs-but-poor-generative-model-of-allostery]] — DCA accurate for point-mutation costs, poor generatively.
- [[claim-dca-underestimates-long-range-epistasis-in-allosteric-materials]] — short-range captured, long-range underestimated.
- [[claim-pdz-dca-couplings-track-short-range-epistasis-more-than-long-range]] — real-protein (PDZ) confirmation, ρ=0.69 vs 0.48.
- [[claim-bravi-allosteric-networks-are-evolved-not-coupled-learning]] — the scope caveat on "physical-learning networks."