Giovanni La Rana, born in 1952 in Naples (Italy), is Full Professor of Physics at the University Federico II of Naples (Italy). Since 2011, he is the Director of the Naples Division of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN). The Division supports experimental and theoretical research in the field of subnuclear, nuclear and astroparticle physics as well as technological and applied physics (accelerators, medical physics, cultural heritage, computing, microelectronics, and Environmental radioactivity), involving about 300 scientists and wide International collaborations.

Since 1975, when he graduated in physics at the University Federico II of Naples, he has been working in different fields of experimental nuclear physics, dealing with the structure and the reaction mechanisms of nuclei. He achieved his PhD degree in Physics at the University of Paris XI (Orsay) in 1978. In his career, he provided a significant contribution mainly to the study of the formation and the decay of composite nuclei produced at high excitation energies in the collisions between heavy projectiles and targets. In this field he is considered an expert.

Driven by strong interest in physics, he spent at the beginning of his career about four years in France and two years in USA, carrying on research at different foreign Institutions: Nuclear Physics Institute of Orsay (1976 –1977); University of Nantes (1977-1979); DPh-N-MF Service of CEA (1982–1983); Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh – Pennsylvania, (1984–1986). During these years, he has been involved in experiments at International Laboratories: Tandem Accelerator of IPN-Orsay, SARA (Système Accélérateur Rhone Alpes)-Grenoble and GANIL (Grand Accélérateur National d’Ions Lourds) in France, and Super-Hilac Laboratory of Berkeley in USA.

He came back to the University Federico II of Naples in 1986, holding a position as researcher in that Institution. He became associate professor in 1993 and full professor in 2002. He continued his research activity in experimental nuclear physics within the nuclear physics group at the INFN Division of Naples, in the framework of International collaborations, participating in experiments involving large detector arrays at European laboratories as INFN Legnaro National Laboratories (LNL, Padova), CEA Saclay, Centre de Recherches Nucléaires (CRN) Strasbourg and GANIL in France. He has been coordinator of various experiments financed by INFN (Diamant 1992-1996, Euroball 1997-2010), as well as by EU (Research Contract- Human Capital and Mobility Research Network 1992-95, and EURISOL DS project 2007-2009), and by the Ministry of Education, University and Research (Progetto Premiale SPES 2011-2013). Since 2007 he is the Chairman of the Steering Committee of SPES (Selective Production of Exotic Species) INFN project, a second generation facility in phase of completion at LNL, for the production and the reacceleration of radioactive ion beams for nuclear physics and interdisciplinary research, mainly devoted to the production of innovative radioisotopes for medicine. SPES represents an important project for the near future of the Italian and International nuclear physics community, recommended by the Nuclear Physics European Collaboration Committee (NuPECC).

Naples, January 2016

Giovanni La Rana