Speakers 2012

Giovanni Amelino-Camelia (b. 1965 in Naples) is an Italian physicist. He earned his undergraduate degree in Physics from the University of Naples in 1989 and his PhD from MIT in 1989. After holding various post-doctoral positions outside of Italy, since 2000 he has been a researcher at the University of Rome La Sapienza, where he teaches an introductory course in Quantum Gravity.

He is one of the leading Italian scientists investigating quantum gravity, and is the proponent of “doubly special relativity”, a theory that can be seen as an evolution of Einstein’s special relativity.

Amelino-Camelia is primarily famous in the field of physics for having been the first to come up with simplified quantum gravity models capable of being experimentally tested, in sharp contrast to string theory, the most popular approach to quantum gravity up to now, which has not led to any testable model.

Discover included him in its list of six potential new Einsteins, and according to the h-index, he is considered to be one of the most authoritative Italian physicists worldwide.