Students and Alumni Awards

National and international prizes


Carlo Vanoni (current PhD student)

2023 — Augusto Righi prize (SIF)

Award assigned during the 109th conference of the Italian Physics Society, in the category of young physics graduates after May 2020.

Alessio Lerose (PhD 2019)

2021 — Early Career Award (NJP)

Recognised for seminal and pioneering contributions in the field of non-equilibrium dynamics of quantum statistical systems.

Alessio Lerose (PhD 2019)

2021 — Giovanni Polvani prize

Award assigned during the 107th conference of the Italian Physics Society, in the category of young physics graduates after May 2014.

Paola Ruggiero (PhD 2019)

2021 — Giuseppe-Franco Bassani prize

Award assigned during the 107th conference of the Italian Physics Society, in the category of young physics graduates after May 2014.

Paola Ruggiero (PhD 2019)

2021 — INFN “Sergio Fubini” Prize for best thesis

The Prize was established by INFN to celebrate the Italian Physicist Sergio Fubini and his remarkable contribution to Quantum Field Theory and String Theory.

Lorenzo Piroli (PhD 2018)

2020 — INFN “Sergio Fubini” Prize for best thesis

The Prize was established by INFN to celebrate the Italian Physicist Sergio Fubini and his remarkable contribution to Quantum Field Theory and String Theory.

Valentina Ros (PhD 2016)

2019 — Early Career Prize of the Statistical and Nonlinear Physics Division of the European Physical Society

For her outstanding research contributions in quantum and classical disordered systems, explaining new ways in which those systems can break ergodicity and fail to equilibrate, and her investigations of rough, high-dimensional landscapes emerging in this context.

Laura Foini (PhD 2011)

2017 – Early Career Prize of the Statistical and Nonlinear Physics Division of the European Physical Society

For her outstanding research contributions in the field of glassy systems and nonequilibrium dynamics of isolated quantum systems.

SISSA Best thesis in physics


Sara Murciano (PhD 2022)

Supervisor: P. Calabrese
Title: Entanglement and symmetries in many-body quantum systems

The main theme of the Thesis work of Dr.Murciano is the role of entanglement and symmetries in quantum systems. The Thesis is an extremely impressive and very high-quality work, a tour-de-force of mathematical physics, and touches upon some of the most fundamental and commonly discussed problems in condensed matter physics recently. The Thesis work led to an exceptional number of papers (16), the majority of which were published as first author, and to a bibliometric impact comparable to that of a professor. For these reasons, the Ph.D. thesis of Dr.Murciano fully deserves the prize for best thesis in the Physics Area of SISSA for the year 2022.

Paola Ruggiero (PhD 2019)

Supervisor: P. Calabrese
Title: Entanglement and correlations in one-dimensional quantum many-body systems

The Ph.D. Thesis of Dr.ssa Paola Ruggiero testifies an outstanding scientific output, in terms of originality, broadness, depth, quality and quantity. Dr. Ruggiero’s Thesis has contributed significantly to the understanding of various open issues, extremely relevant for the physics of one-dimensional many body systems, spanning from the characterization of their entanglement content to the descriptions of inhomogeneous and disordered configurations. Moreover, these results have been achieved with the exploitation of advanced and innovative techniques, including conformal field theory in flat and curved spaces, strong disorder RG, generalized hydrodynamics. Dr. Ruggiero has published 16 papers in refereed international journals with high-impact factor (6 of which are first authored), obtaining more than 300 overall citations. Finally, during her Ph.D. training, Dr. Ruggiero has also autonomously pursued a few projects, setting up a growing network of international collaborations with world-leading scientists in the field of statistical physics.

Lorenzo Piroli (PhD 2018)

Supervisor: P. Calabrese
Title: Nonequilibrium Quantum States of Matter

The Ph.D. Thesis of Dr. Lorenzo Piroli testifies an outstanding scientific output, in terms of originality, quality and quantity, in the field of nonequilibrium quantum states of matter, contributing significantly to the understanding of various open issues in the nonequilibrium evolution of one-dimensional quantum systems. Dr. Piroli has published 21 papers in refereed international journals, 12 are first-authored, and 3 have appeared in the prestigious Physical Review Letters. Finally, while working on his Thesis, Dr. Piroli has also autonomously pursued numerous projects within a growing network of international collaborations.

Alessio Chiocchetta Tomelleri (PhD 2016)

Supervisor: A. Gambassi
Title: A study on non-equilibrium dynamics in isolated and open quantum systems

The numerous scientific publications resulting from the PhD thesis of Dr. Chiocchetta are of very high quality and remarkable impact. His work demonstrates his mastering of a variety of sofisticate analytical techniques, used to describe complex physical phenomena occurring in statistical physics.

Alessio Squarcini (PhD 2015)

Supervisor: G. Delfino
Title: Phase Separation and Interfaces — Exact Results

The thesis work of Dr. Squarcini establishes the exact theory of interfaces in planar systems at phase coexistence near criticality, a main topic of statistical physics. The completely original results made the object of a series of publications in the leading journals of the field and open the way to new advances.

Michele Burrello (PhD 2012)

Supervisors: G. Mussardo and A. Trombettoni
Title: Topological quantum computation, anyons and non-abelian gauge potentials

For his outstanding work on non-abelian anyon physics, in particular for implementing a very efficient search algorithm of a single q-bit quantum gate based on braiding properties of the so-called Fibonacci anyons.
Image: Statistical Physics group.