Federico Boscherini (Rome, 1960), Professor of Physics, Director of IOM – Materials Foundry Institute of CNR – Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (Trieste); on leave from the University of Bologna. Previously, he was researcher at Frascati National Laboratories of Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare and a post doctoral associate at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis (USA). In 1996 he was Visiting Scientist at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility.
Main appointments
2022 – 2026, Chair of the Council, European XFEL GmbH (Germany).
2021 – 2024, Deputy Director of the Physics and Astronomy Department of the University of Bologna.
2016 – 2018, member of the national habilitation committee for Associate and Full Professor in Experimental Physics of Matter.
2015 – 2021, Chair of the Research Commission of the Physics and Astronomy Department, University of Bologna and the Department’s delegate for Research.
2015 – , Italian representative in the General Assembly of the European Synchrotron Users Organization (ESUO).
2014 – 2016, Chair of beamtime allocation panel 04 of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility.
2012 – 2016, President of the Italian Synchrotron Radiation Society.
2005 – 2014, Member of the Commission on XAFS of the International Union for Crystallography.
Scientific profile
Prof. Boscherini is an internationally recognized scientist in the field of photon science with large scale facilities (synchrotron radiation, free electron lasers). His primary scientific interest is the study via electron spectroscopies of the relation between local structure and physical properties of advanced materials, with a focus on materials for photocatalysis, dopants and defects in semiconductors and nanoparticles. He was a member of the group which proposed and operated the Italian CRG beamline “GILDA” at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility.
He has been PI and responsible for research units for several projects, including
2000 – 2001 (24 months): Principal Investigator of project FLUX (FLUorescence soft X-ray absorption) funded by the Synchrotron Radiation Committee of Istituto Nazionale di Fisica della Materia (INFM). The project involved five groups, total funding 300 kEuro.
2000 – 2001 (24 months): Principal Investigator of a synchrotron radiation long term project on the ALOISA beamline of Elettra, on low-Z dopants in semiconductors.
2001 – 2002 (24 months): Responsible of the Bologna research unit of the national project “Optical and Structural Characterization of InGaAsN/GaAs heterostructures”. Funding 100 kEuro.
2003 – 2004 (24 months): Responsible of the Bologna research unit of the INFM project “REOHK – Rare earth oxides as high-k dielectrics for CMOS”. Funding 100 kEuro.
2012 – 2014 (24 months): Principal Investigator of project “EX – PRO – REL: Excitation and relaxation processes in condensed matter” funded by Elettra – Sincrotrone Trieste, involving 6 groups. Total funding 210 kEuro.
2016 – 2019 (36 months): Principal Investigator of the PRIN 2015 “NEWLI” project funded by MIUR, the Italian Ministry of Research and Education. Total funding 650 kEuro.
2023: In charge of the Bologna unit of PRIN 2022 – PNRR project (Italian Ministry of University and Research) “Resonant Energy Transfer from Plasmonic Nanoparticles to Semiconductors: a Route to Improve Solar Photocatalytic Efficiency (ResET), funding 90 k€.
2024: PI of PRIN 2022 project “electron Dynamics in Nanostructured Functional Oxides” (e-DyNaFOx), total funding 173 k€. Following the appointment as Director of IOM – CNR, renounced the role as PI and participated as a member of the Bologna research unit.
Papers published
Author of 217 research papers, 9 book chapters, 2 books as editor, including Volume I on X-ray Absorption Fine Structure of the International Tables of Crystallography published by the International Union of Crystallography.
ORCID ID 0000-0002-9703-3903
SCOPUS Author ID 7003788683
WOS (27/1/2022): h-index: 34
SCOPUS (11/9/2024): h-index: 35
Google Scholar (4/11/2024): h-index 40.
Conference organization
He has been chairman of the series of Symposia on “Synchrotron Radiation and Materials Science” at the Spring Meetings of the European Materials Research Society (2002, 2005, 2009 and 2011) held in Strasbourg and Nice. As President of the Italian Synchrotron Radiation Society he chaired or co-chaired four annual conferences of the society from 2012 to 2015. In 2017 and 2019 he was chairman of Symposia on Synchrotron Radiation and Materials Science at EUROMAT2017 (Thessaloniki, Greece) and EUROMAT 2019 (Stockholm, Sweden).
Teaching
Prof. Boscherini’s teaching duties have been numerous. For 14 years he has taught a fundamental physics course for biology students at the University of Bologna; he has also taught introductory crystallography for the same students. In the physics degree program he has taught a course on x-ray physics for the past 20 years. In recent years he has taught condensed matter physics, thermodynamics and physics laboratory.
Prof. Boscherini is regularly invited to lecture at advanced schools in the field of synchrotron radiation, in Italy and abroad, including the schools of the Italian Synchrotron Radiation Society and tutorials organized by the International Union of Crystallography.
Updated November 2024.
