I-LAMP Master graduates award: Paolo Franceschini

Paolo Franceschini obtained his Master Degree in Physics at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in September 2017, with the thesis "Transition-Metal Oxides heterostructures as a platform for emergent quantum phenomena". This work was done under the supervision of Dr. Claudio Giannetti and Dr. Francesco Banfi. Since the beginning of his Master, Paolo have always been interested in the relation between the structural and optical properties of materials and this led him to choose a Master thesis project dealing with the synthesis and characterization of thin films of Lanthanum Vanadate. This work was supported by some Italian laboratories: i-Lamp at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Elettra-Sincrotrone in Trieste, and NFFA-Trieste. In November 2017, Paolo started a PhD at the international doctoral program in Science at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore joined with KU Leuven, with a project titled “Controlling multi-band materials via orbital manipulation”.

I-LAMP early career award (academic): Daniele Fausti

Daniele Fausti got his Master’s degree in Physics of Matter at the Department of Physics of Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Brescia in 2002. After his graduation and a brief research period associated to the Physics of Matter laboratories, then called Elphos Labs and now become I-Lamp, he moved to the University of Groningen in The Netherlands for a Ph.D. program, and he got his Ph.D. degree there in 2008. Afterwards he worked as a post-doc researcher for a couple of years at the Max Planck research institute for structural dynamics in Hamburg and at University of Oxford in UK. Since 2010 he is back in Italy as a researcher at the University of Trieste, where he is currently working as an Associate Professor since 2017. His research activity deals with investigating complex materials, such as high-Tc superconductivity, using the Pump&Probe technique.

I-LAMP early career award (non academic): Luca Spadafora

Luca Spadafora joined UBS in London where he is focused on validation of Algorithmic Trading Strategies. His working activity encompasses the development of high-frequency trading strategies, using advanced statistics and artificial intelligence. Previously, he was Head of Quantitative Models Validation at Banco Popolare. He also worked for UniCredit, where he led the Pricing model validation team, and Intesa Sanpaolo as Quantitative Analyst in the Audit Department. He was Temporary professor at University of Verona and Adjunct professor at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. In 2017, he published a book on the "Theoretical foundations for Quantitative Finance". He holds a M.Sc. and a Ph.D. in Physics.