The University of Trento welcomes applications for admission to the 40th cycle of the PhD in Physics, for positions starting on November 1, 2024 (see here for Italian link, here for English link, and here for much more detailed information): this year we have a total of 19 positions, 14 of which with scholarship, and 4 of which are “open positions”, i.e. not tied to any specific topic. Applicants interested in working within the Theoretical Gravitation and Cosmology group (basically either with me or Prof. Rinaldi) would be competing for these 4 “open positions” - however, another possible channel for working with us is to apply for one of the 3 INFN funded-positions (Section “D, E - Particle, astroparticle, nuclear, theoretical physics, related technologies and applications, including medical Physics”), which are de facto “open positions” (as long as the topic one ends up working on is related to INFN research themes, for instance the group’s current PhD students Chiara Cecchini and Davide Pedrotti were awarded one of these positions). I cannot stress enough that competition for these positions is extremely strong, with an oversubscription ratio much higher than for the other (reserved) positions: a corollary is that there is no guarantee our group will be taking new PhD students, given that it really depends on the personal interests of those who will be awarded these positions (however, I can anticipate that I will be taking a most one new PhD student - for a rough guideline on possible topics one could work on with me, please see this link, section “First call 40°cycle - Other research topics”, subsection “FT - Theoretical and computational physics”, and refer to the topic “Dark matter and dark energy in the era of precision multi-messenger cosmology and cosmic tensions (Vagnozzi)”). If you are interested in working with us, please make this very clear in your “lettera motivazionale” (“statement of purpose”), which plays an extremely important role in the evaluation of candidates, so please take it very seriously. The application deadline is May 15, 2024 at 16:00 Italy time, but applicants are strongly encouraged to apply well in advance of the deadline - if you are interested in working within our group, please do not hesitate to reach out either to me or Prof. Rinaldi (or both) and apply as soon as possible!
Journal club/group meetings restart
This afternoon we restarted the journal club tradition for the Theoretical Gravitation and Cosmology group, which basically plays the role of our informal group meetings. Between faculty, visiting faculty, postdocs, PhD students, and MSc students, it was great to see 19 of us in the room (with a couple more yet to join us)! After a quick round of presentations, Max, Chiara, and I presented our scale-invariant inflation paper. One of my next tasks will be to update the group’s website, which is chronically out-of-date. And hopefully I’ll be able to post a group picture soon, once everybody has joined us!
Teaching restarts today
Today my teaching duties restart once more - this semester I’ll only be teaching Classical Thermodynamics for the Mathematics BSc. Last year’s course was very successful, and I hope to be able to replicate the success this year. Since I will be teaching mathematicians, for today’s first lecture I decided to set the record straight and openly admit that, yes, we physicists do simplify differentials and treat them as fractions. Hopefully this helped break the ice! Once more, all my teaching material will be made publicly available, while being regularly updated, on the English and Italian versions of my teaching page.
PhD Programme Executive Committee
I’m extremely pleased to have been nominated member of the new Executive Committee of our PhD School (Comitato Esecutivo del Corso di Dottorato). The other members of the committee will be Raffaello Potestio (coordinator of the PhD school and chair of the committee), Gabriele Ferrari (deputy coordinator of the PhD school), Matteo Calandra, Lorenzo Pavesi, Leonardo Ricci, and Emanuele Scifoni. Our tasks will include guiding and overseeing a smooth running of the PhD school, while also making related decisions at important times, and obviously helping an otherwise overburdened Raffaello as coordinator. Undoubtedly a very important responsability, given we are talking about the programme which produces our PhD graduates. I look forward to working with my fellow committee members over the next years!
Teaching committee
I’m extremely pleased to have been nominated member of the new Teaching Committee (Commissione Didattica) - “new” given that we just elected the new Head of Department, and this implies a reshuffling/re-election of all committees, councils, and boards. The other members of the committee will be Albino Perego (teaching coordinator and chair of the committee), Stefano Azzini, Roberto Iuppa, Matteo Leonardi, and Marco Zanatta. Our tasks will include taking care of all things teaching-related, and in particular I will be responsible for the theoretical courses at both BSc and MSc levels. It will undoubtedly involve a lot of work, but I am very happy to put myself on the line to help improve our teaching activities, for which we are among the best Italian Universities. I look forward to working with my fellow committee members over the next years!
Notte della Ricerca 2023
I had great fun taking part in the Notte della Ricerca (European Researchers’ Night - an Europe-wide public outreach event, meant to explain science and its impact to the public in fun and inspiring ways) at MUSE, the Science Museum of Trento. Together with Max Rinaldi and Chiara Cecchini (Max’s PhD student) we prepared four very simple posters, each related to one of our research themes: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Black Holes, and the CMB. No words, just pictures, the idea being that of getting people curious and encouraging them to come and talk to us about our work. It definitely worked, and we got tons of people of all ages and backgrounds asking us all sorts of questions, many of which related to white holes (somewhat unsurprisingly I would say). Despite my throat being very sore from all the talking, it was a truly fun night, and I hope we inspired some of the younger minds to come and study physics!
Teaching restarts today
Today my teaching duties restart again. Fortunately this semester I’ll have a much lighter load, both because I’ll only be teaching one course (again Advanced Topics in Theoretical Physics, following the same program as last semester), and obviously because I already delivered the same course previously. Last semester’s course was a great success and was truly satisfying, with a number of excellent students attending (many of which will end up doing their MSc theses with me), so I hope this semester will be as successful. And there will definitely be much more time for research this time! Once more, all my teaching material will be made publicly available, while being regularly updated, on the English and Italian versions of my teaching page.
Internal Call for Research 2023 grant application
I just submitted an application for an UniTrento Internal Call for Research 2023 grant, funded by the Autonomous Province of Trento (PAT). I based my scientific case largely on the ERC StG application I submitted last year, obviously after taking into account reviewer feedback. I should hear back in October and, if successful, this would allow me to hire a couple of postdocs - I’m keeping my fingers crossed!
ERC Starting Grant evaluation report
Today I received the evaluation report for Step 1 of my ERC Starting Grant application, which was unsurprisingly unsuccessful - as I promised in an earlier news item, I have decided to openly report the outcome of the evaluation to help normalize otherwise taboo discussions about lack of success in academia. I received a “B” (proposal of high quality but not sufficient to pass to Step 2 of the evaluation), which means I am blocked from applying for a further year. The comments from the 4 reviewers were actually extremely positive (their ratings included 7 “exceptional”, 3 “excellent”, and 2 “very good”), and the high-risk high-gain nature of the project was clearly appreciated. The main issue identified by more than one reviewers was that I probably put too much at once - a subset of the proposal focusing on 2/3 of the ideas I put out there would probably have stood a much better chance. This was a very useful experience, the reviewer comments were very helpful and I have to say somewhat reassuring, so at this point there’s not much more I can do than roll up my sleeves, while looking forward to trying again in 2024 taking this feedback into account!
UniVersum IV
Really excited to be attending UniVersum IV, the fourth edition of the UniVersum series of cosmology meetings, roughly the Italian equivalent of UKCosmo for the UK, or IberiCos for Spain-Portugal. This year’s edition is held, excitingly, in Trento! It also happens to be my first in-person conference after the pandemic. I will be giving a keynote talk on “Cosmic acceleration: now, then, and back then”, whose slides you can find here. Looking forward to lots of interesting discussions!
Associated to TIFPA-INFN
As of today I’m officially associated to INFN, the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics. I’m associated through our local TIFPA center, which stands for “Trento Institute for Fundamental Physics and Applications”. In particular, I’ll be a member of the FLAG Iniziativa Specifica, which stands for “FieLds And Gravity”, and focuses on a number of themes which include early-Universe cosmology and black hole physics. Looking forward to many interesting discussions which will come out of this, especially from FLAG!
ERC Starting Grant application submitted!
Right on the deadline, I submitted my ERC Starting Grant application. Obviously I chose Trento as host and, albeit much less obviously, “TRENTO” as acronym.* It was a huge amount of work and, I won’t lie, I know the chances of even just making it to the interview stage are meager to say the least. However, I have decided that I will openly report the outcome of the evaluation here in this news section, for a simple reason: in academia there is a tendency to only discuss one’s successes, whereas openly talking about one’s insuccesses is considered somewhat of a “taboo”. I hope that by openly discussing a (likely) failure/insuccess, I will help normalizing this type of discussions which, while often done in oral form, are rarely done in written form - I believe this can only make for a healthier community (I’ll note I have been prompted also by Natalie Hogg’s excellent blog, which I regularly read and highly recommend, and which does not shy away from openly discussing lack of success). So, regardless of the outcome, I will get back with an update on this in March, while in the meantime enjoying a deserved break!
*Just because it already worked once: my successful Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship application, which would have been hosted by the University of Padova had I not declined it, indeed had “PADOVA” as acronym.
First day (of school)
Today is officially my first day as Assistant Professor at the University of Trento! In practice I’ll actually be physically starting in a month or so, during which I will be on leave of absence to take care of a number of scattered things (mostly bureaucracy related to the move). In the meantime, below is the view I will get from my new office - nothing short of breathtaking, right? 😎
Moving (back) to the University of Trento!
I’m extremely happy to announce that I’m moving back to the University of Trento, where I will soon start a new position as tenure-track Assistant Professor (RTDb in the Italian system)! I’m very excited not only about returning to my home country, Italy, but specifically to the University of Trento, which is where I got my Bachelor’s degree back in 2012. Those who know me know that this was by far my dream job: returning to my alma mater, where my journey in physics began, really feels like the closing of a huge circle, not to mention that Trento itself is a fantastic place to live in. Incidentally, the official offer arrived precisely on my last day as a Newton-Kavli Fellow at the University of Cambridge - which I started exactly on October 7, 2019 - which, besides the perfect timing, confirms the non-written rule that virtually all Cambridge Kavli Fellowship holders move on to a permanent or tenure-track position immediately afterwards 😉 I really can’t wait to get started!
