The winners of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2025 Young Investigator (YI) Awards, and the first Innovator Award were announced yesterday at the Embassy of Italy in Washington during the annual ISSNAF event, the foundation that brings together thousands of Italian scientists, academics, and technologists active in laboratories, universities, and research and innovation centers in North America.
The recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement award is Prof. Pietro de Camilli (Yale University), whose work has revolutionized the understanding of how lipid membranes regulate communication in the brain. His studies on synaptic vesicles and phosphoinositide lipids have revealed how neurons recycle and remodel their membranes, with significant implications for the study of neurodegenerative diseases. His work has also linked key proteins involved in neurotransmitter release to genes associated with Parkinson’s disease, uncovering their role in lysosome maintenance and opening new therapeutic avenues.
This year there are five Young Investigator Awards: the Embassy of Italy Award for research in the field of quantum technologies; the Paola Campese Award for research on hematologic neoplasms; the Mario Gerla Award for research in computer science; the RnB4Culture Award for innovation in Italian cultural studies; and the INFN Bruno Touschek Award for research in fundamental physics.
The Award Chairs and members of the ISSNAF Scientific Council are the following professors: Andrea Alù (CUNY) for the Embassy of Italy Award; Alessandra Ferrajoli (University of Texas at Houston) for the Paola Campese Award; Leila De Floriani (University of Maryland) for the Mario Gerla Award; Franco Pierno (University of Toronto) for the RnB4Culture Award; and Patrizia Rossi (Jefferson National Lab) for the INFN Bruno Touschek Award.
Here is the list of the winners of the five awards:
Embassy of Italy Award: Prof. Marco Colangelo, Assistant Professor, Northeastern University with the research project “High-performance superconducting detectors for quantum information science applications”. He obtained degrees in Physics Engineering and Electronic Engineering in Italy and a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. His research focuses on superconducting nanowire technologies, such as single-photon detectors and microwave devices, for applications in quantum computing and communication, developing high-performance detectors and ultra-compact cryogenic signal processors.
Mario Gerla Award: Dr. Antonio Loquercio, Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania with his research on “Re-thinking the Role of Perception for Decision Making”. He obtained his PhD and master’s degree at the University and the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (UZH and ETH). His research combines learning-based robotics, computer vision, and machine learning, with pioneering results in sim-to-real transfer for sensorimotor control. He has received numerous awards, including the ETH Medal, the Georges Giralt PhD Award, and honors at the CORL and RSS conferences.
RnB4Culture Award: Dr. Sara Galli, International Visiting Lecturer, Dickinson College with her project “Inclusive Language and Educational Change in Italian Courses”.
Sara Galli obtained two master’s degrees in Modern Philology and in Teaching Italian to Foreigners at the University of Genoa and completed her PhD in Italian Studies at the University of Toronto in 2024 with a dissertation on the educational project of Dante Alighieri. Since 2019, she has conducted research on gender disparities and hidden biases in Romance languages, publishing in scientific journals and participating in international workshops. Since 2023, she has taught at Dickinson College, Pennsylvania, where she also promotes the use of inclusive language across all departments.
Paola Campese Award: Dr. Maria Caterina Rotiroti, Research Fellow, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, with research in “Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy for hematological malignancies”. Trained in Italy, she obtained her PhD in 2019 at the University of Milano-Bicocca, conducting research at the Tettamanti Foundation in Monza on CAR T therapies for acute myeloid leukemia. She now studies strategies to prevent tumor immune evasion and has developed a platform that increases the sensitivity of CAR T cells, enhancing their effectiveness against tumors with heterogeneous antigen expression.
INFN Bruno Touschek Award: Prof. Antonella Palmese, Assistant Professor, Carnegie Mellon University, with research in “Gravitational waves as a new cosmological probe”. An observational cosmologist working at the intersection of gravitational waves and large cosmological surveys, she was awarded the NASA Einstein Fellowship in 2021 and conducted research at Berkeley with Nobel laureate Saul Perlmutter. Previously, she worked at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and obtained her PhD at University College London after completing her degree at the Sapienza University of Rome.
This year marks the debut of the ISSNAF Innovator Awards series, which recognizes innovators for achievements in translating research results into entrepreneurship. The first ISSNAF Innovator Award was sponsored by TEF – Tech Europe Foundation for contributions in the field of robotics.
In 2025, the TEF Award for STEM Entrepreneur in Robotics was presented by a jury chaired by Pierluigi Zappacosta, entrepreneur and founding member of ISSNAF, to Dr. Francesco Borrelli, Chief AI and Robotics Officer at Nextracker, Inc. and Fanuc Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Borrelli obtained his degree at the University of Naples Federico II and his PhD at ETH Zurich. He is a professor at Berkeley, where he studies predictive control applied to autonomous vehicles, solar energy, and sustainable transportation systems. He founded BrightBox Technologies and WideSense Inc. and leads Nextracker’s global AI and robotics strategy.
