The Governing Board of the Institute for High Energy Physics (IFAE) has appointed Prof. Eugenio Coccia as the new director, with effect from 15 November 2022.
Dr Coccia is an experimental physicist specialising in astroparticle physics. His research has focused on the study and detection of gravitational waves and on the development of very low temperature technologies for fundamental physics experiments.
A suma cum laude graduate in Physics from the University of Rome (1980), in Edoardo Amaldi’s group, he was a post-doctoral researcher and later a fellow at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN, 1981-1985). He was also a researcher (1985-1987) and professor of Physics (1988-2016) at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, alternating several periods of research activity at CERN, the Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory in Leiden and the National Nuclear Physics Institute (INFN) Laboratory in Frascati.
He was director of the INFN Gran Sasso Laboratory (2003-2009) and founding director of the Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI) School of Advanced Studies, where he has been director until now. He is an honorary member of the Academia Europaea and a fellow of the European Physical Society.
Eugenio Coccia will be the fourth director of the IFAE, succeeding the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) research professor Ramon Miquel, director since 2015 who will remain at the IFAE as principal investigator in the observational cosmology research group. The previous directors of the centre were Matteo Cavalli-Sforza (2008-2014) and Enrique Fernández, its founder and first director (1991-2008).
The appointment of the new director is the result of an international selection process coordinated by the CERCA Institute and involving the IFAE External Scientific Advisory Board.
