Giovanni Losurdo

Full Professor of Experimental Physics at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, affiliated with the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN).

Since the 1990s, he has worked on the Virgo experiment for gravitational wave detection, initially focusing on the development of the Superattenuator, under the guidance of Adalberto Giazotto. Later, he contributed to the construction, commissioning, and subsequent upgrades of the detector.

From 2009 to 2017, he served as the Project Leader for Advanced Virgo, the enhancement program for the Virgo detector, which enabled the observation of gravitational waves in August 2017 and contributed to the groundbreaking discovery that ushered in a new era of multi-messenger astronomy.

From 2020 to 2023, he was the Spokesperson of the Virgo Collaboration.

He has received the Galilei Prize for Science and the Tartufari Prize for Physics and Chemistry from the Accademia dei Lincei. He shared with the LIGO and Virgo Collaborations the Special Breakthrough Prize in fundamental physics, the Gruber Cosmology Prize, the Einstein Medal.

He is a Fellow of Accademia dei Lincei since 2019.

In 2017 he was awarded the honor of “Commendatore dell’Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana”  by President Mattarella.