The annual event of the Foundation, launched by a video message from Italian Minister of Health, Orazio Schillaci, Italian Ambassador Mariangela Zappia, INFN Vice President Diego Bettoni, and ISSNAF President Cinzia Zuffada. Francesca Garretti, Filippo Gianferrari, Giulia Guidi, Eugenio Morelli, Luigi Osmieri, Angelica Pesarini, and Chiara Trovatello were given awards. Federico Capasso received the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Washington DC, November 8, 2023 – A strengthened and renewed bond in the name of scientific research and innovation, evident in the work of young researchers. That is the connection between Italy and the United States, celebrated at the Italian Embassy 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 event, held on November 8, 2023, at the Embassy of Italy in Washington, under the High Patronage of the President of the Italian Republic, was opened by Ambassador Mariangela Zappia and a video message from Minister Orazio Schillaci, followed by a greeting from Vice President Diego Bettoni on behalf of Italy’s National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN). During the event, the winners of the six awards of the latest edition of the Young Investigator Awards were announced: Francesca Garretti for the Embassy of Italy Award, Filippo Gianferrari for the RnB4Culture Award (tied), Giulia Guidi for the Mario Gerla Award, Eugenio Morelli for the Paola Campese Award, Luigi Osmieri for the Franco Strazzabosco Award, Angelica Pesarini for the RnB4Culture Award (tied), Chiara Trovatello for the INFN Bruno Touschek Award. The Lifetime Achievement Award was conferred upon Federico Capasso.
Minister Schillaci highlighted ISSNAF’s activity in creating “a virtuous network among Italian researchers in the USA, and between them and their colleagues in Italy, fostering the sharing of knowledge and enhancing scientific, cultural, and technological collaboration between Italy and the United States.” Emphasizing the relevance of the theme chosen by ISSNAF for this year’s discussion, degenerative diseases, the Minister of Health noted the importance of the work of the Italian researchers awarded by ISSNAF for their contributions to neuroscience and congratulated all the winners of the 2023 ISSNAF awards in various disciplines, starting with Prof. Federico Capasso, honored with the career award. Referring to an excerpt from President Mattarella’s message to Italians abroad on the occasion of the last Republic Day, the Minister reiterated the need to “move from brain drain to talent circulation, fostering a virtuous circuit of skills and competencies,” highlighting ISSNAF’s contribution in that direction.
Ambassador Zappia confirmed the strong support of the Embassy for ISSNAF’s activities, highlighting its contribution to strengthening collaboration between Italy and the United States in the scientific and technological field, one of the objectives set by the joint statement signed by Prime Minister Meloni and President Biden in Washington last July. While congratulating ISSNAF for the theme selected for this year’s reflection, the Ambassador recalled that life sciences are among the priority sectors identified by the renewed Framework Agreement between Italy and the USA on scientific and technological cooperation. The Ambassador congratulated all the researchers and scientists awarded by ISSNAF, noting with satisfaction that women represented nearly half of the candidates for the various awards in 2023, demonstrating the growing presence of women in science and especially in STEM fields.
The annual event concluded a year of growth for ISSNAF’s activities in North America, which saw the progressive strengthening of its Chapters representing the Foundation at the local and regional levels. A testament to the members’ desire to aggregate and organize networking activities, in close collaboration with the Italian Embassy, consular network, and Cultural Institutes, especially for the celebration of Italian Research Day in the World. In 2023, the Foundation obtained funding from the Ministry of Universities and Research to provide useful services over three years for the internationalization of Italian universities, especially postgraduate training courses. The significant result also stems from the success of multi-year agreements with the University of Pisa and the Polytechnic University of Turin to provide research experiences for master’s and doctoral students from Italy at research centers in North America.
“The funding from MUR [Italy’s Ministry of Universities and Research] recognizes the value of ISSNAF to Italy to enhance its international dimension of postgraduate training and research, facilitating the training of Italian personnel at universities and research and development centers in North America, and providing professional enrichment experiences to bring back to Italy,” said ISSNAF President Cinzia Zuffada. “Thanks to our structured approach that leverages a membership interested in hosting students from Italy, we are ready to scale our activities involving more universities and research centers to create a virtuous circle of scientific collaboration.”
Forum: Frontiers in Neuroscience
ISSNAF’s annual event featured a discussion on the impact of neurodegenerative diseases, especially those related to aging populations, on societies in terms of the need for care and support services. Of particular interest are the policies implemented to address growing needs, the state of research in the involved sectors, and the role of philanthropy in raising awareness among the public and business. The discussion, which fits into the theme of the Embassy of Italy Award for fundamental contributions to research on neurodegenerative diseases, was organized in partnership with the Embassy itself and consists of a series of policy communications followed by a roundtable focused on research.
For the policy segment, Dr. Luigi Ferrucci of the National Institutes of Health – National Institute of Aging, Dr. Richard Nicholls of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Community Living, Dr. Ekemini Riley of the Coalition for Aligning Science, and Prof. Marco Silano of the Higher Institute of Health participated.
The roundtable included Prof. David Hafler from Yale University, Prof. David Sulzer from Columbia University, and was moderated by Prof. Alessandro Sette of the La Jolla Institute of Immunology, in his role as a Member of the Scientific Council and Chair of the Embassy of Italy Award.
“I am proud to have participated in the organization of the event Frontiers in Neuroscience,” said Alessandro Sette, “which emphasized the growing importance of neurodegenerative diseases by providing a 360-degree view, ranging from new perspectives on treatment and prevention to in-depth discussions on institutional policies and the role of philanthropy in the fight against neurodegeneration.
ISSNAF played a fundamental role in realizing this event, linking it to the Embassy Award. The Embassy of Italy Award is in its fourth edition and this year recognizes a young Italian researcher in the field of neurodegenerative diseases and aging, chosen from three finalists. The caliber of science presented by the various finalists illustrated how a new generation of young Italian researchers is destined to play a key role in the fight against neurodegenerative diseases and aging; we are in good hands!”
Federico Capasso – 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award
The winner of the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award, the “career award” from ISSNAF, was Federico Capasso, Professor of Applied Physics and Research Fellow in Electrical Engineering at Harvard University, for his fundamental contributions to the new understanding of the physics of solid-state and quantum electrodynamics, which directly led to his invention of new optoelectronic devices, particularly the quantum cascade laser, and his development of meta-surface and flat optics technologies. Both of these inventions have had a significant impact in two distinct areas of the broader scientific field that includes the way light interacts with materials.
2023 Young Investigator Awards
There are 6 categories in the 2023 edition: the Embassy of Italy Award for researchers working on issues related to equitable food access; the Paola Campese Award for research on hematologic neoplasms; the Franco Strazzabosco Award for research on sustainable energy; the Mario Gerla Award for research in computer science; the RnB4Culture Award for innovation in Italian culture studies, and the INFN Bruno Touschek Award for research in fundamental physics. The Award Chairs and members of the ISSNAF Scientific Council are professors: Alessandro Sette (La Jolla Institute of Immunology) for the Embassy of Italy Award; Riccardo Dalla-Favera (Columbia University) for the Paola Campese Award; Alberto Salleo (Stanford University) for the Franco Strazzabosco Award; Elisa Bertino (Purdue University) for the Mario Gerla Award; Claudio Fogu (University of California, Santa Barbara) for the RnB4Culture Award, and Patrizia Rossi (Jefferson National Lab) and Giorgio Gratta (Stanford University) for the INFN B. Touschek Award.
Spotlight on the winners
Paola Campese Award: Eugenio Morelli graduated in medicine from the University of Catanzaro in 2011 and completed his specialization in Medical Oncology at the same university in 2017. He then joined the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where he works as a Lead Scientist and is also a Research Associate at Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on the study of the role of non-coding RNAs in promoting multiple myeloma and has paved the way for innovative strategies for their targeting, with translation to clinical trials.
Embassy of Italy Award: After completing a Ph.D. in Pathobiology and Molecular Medicine at Columbia University, Francesca Garretti is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Loeb Center for Alzheimer’s Disease at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. Her research focuses on studying the effects of genetic risk factors associated with Alzheimer’s disease on microglial function derived from induced pluripotent stem cells.
INFN Bruno Touschek Award: After earning a Ph.D. in physics from the Polytechnic University of Milan, Chiara Trovatello worked as a postdoc at Columbia University in the area of ultrafast optics with 2D materials. In 2022, she received the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellowship to conduct independent research at Columbia University, with the aim of developing and characterizing ultracompact platforms for quantum optics based on layered semiconductors.
RnB4Culture Award: Filippo Gianferrari and Angelica Pesarini are joint winners. Filippo Gianferrari, originally from Modena and with a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame, is an Assistant Professor of Literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is a medievalist by training with a particular interest in the history of education and literacy in premodern Western Europe and its impact on the political and social life of Italian city-states. Angelica Pesarini is an Associate Professor of Cultural and Racial Studies/Race and Diaspora and Italian Studies at the University of Toronto. After completing a Ph.D. in Sociology and Gender Studies at the University of Leeds, she initially worked at Lancaster University and NYU Florence, where she conceived and taught the course “Black Italy.”
Mario Gerla Award: After earning a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, Giulia Guidi is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the Bowsers College of Computing and Information Sciences (CIS) at Cornell University and a member of the Graduate Field of Computational Biology and Applied Mathematics as well as Computer Science. Her work focuses on high-performance computing for large-scale computational science.
Franco Strazzabosco Award: Luigi Osmieri obtained his Ph.D. at the Polytechnic University of Turin. Since November 2020, he has been part of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, initially as a postdoc, and was promoted to Staff Scientist in January 2023. His main research interests are non-precious metal electrocatalysts, electrode engineering, and electrochemical diagnostics applied to low-temperature electrochemical energy conversion devices, such as polymer electrolyte fuel cells and electrolyzers.
ISSNAF
Founded in 2007 under the auspices of the Italian Embassy in the United States at the initiative of 36 renowned scientists and academics, including 4 Nobel Prize winners, ISSNAF (Italian Scientists and Scholars in North America Foundation) is the non-profit organization that promotes cooperation in the scientific, academic, and technological field between Italian researchers and scholars operating in North America and the research world in Italy. With a network of over 3,500 affiliates, including distinguished scientists and young researchers, ISSNAF represents the Italian intellectual diaspora throughout North America and is a bridge connecting the two shores of the Atlantic, enabling the sharing and enhancement of an invaluable heritage of knowledge and identity. In its activities, ISSNAF collaborates with other organizations and foundations, institutions, and government entities, including the Italian Embassy, the consular network, and Italian Cultural Institutes in the United States and Canada.
Event program and registration available at https://www.issnaf.org/annual-event-2023
