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Personal
Born in Rome, Italy, November 7th, 1959.
Married, one daughter.
Mobile: +39 335 6550248
Work
Department of Physics,
Sapienza, Università di Roma
Piazzale Aldo Moro 2, 00185, Rome, Italy.
Tel. +39 06 49912314
Fax +39 06 49694323
Email:
giancarlo.ruocco@uniroma1.it
giancarlo.ruocco@roma1.infn.it
giancarlo.ruocco@iit.it
Academic Career
2000- Full Professor in Condensed Matter Physics (SSD/SC FIS03/02B1) at Physics Department, Sapienza University of Rome.
1992-2000 Associate Professor in Condensed Matter Physics (SSD/SC FIS03/02B1) at Physics Department, L Aquila University.
1984-1992 Assistant Professor in Condensed Matter Physics (SSD/SC FIS03/02B1) at Physics Department, L Aquila University.
1981 Laurea degree in Physics, summa cum laude, Sapienza University of Rome.
Research Activities
The research activity of Giancarlo Ruocco has been devoted to the study of the dynamics of disordered matter (liquid, supercooled liquids, glasses, gels, colloids, soft matter, biological matter...). The techniques and methodology used are experimental, numerical (mostly molecular simulation) and theoretical. On the experimental side he developed and implemented different spectroscopic instrumentations, specifically for Brillouin scattering, Raman scattering, Inelastic x-ray scattering, Impulse stimulated scattering, photon correlation spectroscopy, non-linear optics, ...
In the period 1981-1985 he developed the first four-pass grating based Brillouin spectrometer. In 1990-2000, together with Dr. Francesco Sette, developed the meV resolution Inelastic X-ray Scattering technique at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), a novel and yet state-of-the-art technique to investigate the THz dynamics in disordered materials. He has been the co-proposer and designer of the first synchrotron based UV scattering beamline (IUVS, Elettera, Trieste) and of a beamline for x-ray transient grating experiments at the Free Electron Laser facility FERMI (Elettra, Trieste). All these instrumentations have been used for the styudy of the high frequency dynamics in disordered matter.
In the last few years, following first the development of the "Soft"-INFM research center and then that of the Center for Life Nano Science (CLNS) of the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), he focus his activity on studying and manipulating soft- and bio-matter.
The more recent activities focus on the technical development of new instrumentation and on the investigation of neural networks.
The development of new instrumentation -carried on in the on-campus laboratories- span from time (fs)- and energy-resolved Raman scattering to Holographic Optical Manipulation, from Macro- to micro-rheology, from state of the art non linear optics to photon correlation spectroscopy. In the last period he has been involved in the development and construction of new microscopy-based set-up:
Fast scan for confocal-like microscopes
Structured illumination microscopes for superesolution
Bessel beam based long working distance microscopes
Brillouin microscopes based on enhanced VIPA straylight rejection
Scanning probe systems for plasmon enhanced transmembrane Raman scattering,
and on the development of methods/systems for the investigation of biomatter:
Study and construction of adaptive optics for deep focusing in turbid systems
Development of newly conceived fluorescent materials: nano-phosphors crystals and protein(ferritine)-rare earth compounds.
Exploitation of existing and new methodology for the detection (holographic, voltage sensitive dye,..) and the excitation (thermal, mechanical via ultrasounds, electrical, magnetic,..) of the neural activity.
The scientific problems investigated in the last period are mainly related to one of the two missions of the CLNS: neurodegenerative disease. He studied, both numerically and experimentally the neural network dynamics in neurons culture and in live micro organisms (C. Elegans). He is responsible for the technical development of a long working distance microscope for the detection of small aggregates of protein (beta-Amyloid, Tau) in the human retina, aiming to the early detection of Alzheimer Disease.
He has been invited speakers at about 50 international conferences and he is co-author of more than 350 publications on international referred journals (among them about 65 publications are on Physical Review Letters, about 70 on Physical Review A/B/E, and 15 on high impact journals as Science, Nature, Review of Modern Physics, PNAS, Nature family).
He has been and is Principal Investigator in different International and National projects.
He is Referee for the major journals in the field, as Science, Nature, Nature Materials, Physical Review Letters, Physical Review E/B, Europhysics Letters, Journal of Chemical Physics and many others. He is member of the editorial board of Condensed Matter journal.
Experience in the coordination of the research activities
Since 2000 he is leader of the "GLAS" (Liquids and Amorphous Solid Group) at the Department of Physics, "Sapienza" University of Rome. The group is constituted by six staff researchers and different PostDocs, PhD students and undergraduate students. Three of the senior researchers of the group won an ERC starting grant, and are now associate professors at Sapienza University of Rome.
In 2004, he founded the Research Center "SOFT" of the INFM. Since then (Apr 2004) to Dec 2008 he has been the director of "SOFT . The center was devoted to the study of the microscopic dynamics in soft matter and disordered materials. The research center coordinated the activity of about 50 university scientists and employed a staff of about 25 researchers. After the restructuring of the INFM-CNR, the research center SOFT became part of the CNR institute named Istituto per I Processi Chimici-Fisici (IPCF).
From Nov 2007 to Jan 2013 he has been the director of the Physics Department at "Sapienza" University of Rome. The Department counts about 150 staff professors and about 350 non staff researchers (from PhD students to researchers of other institutions operating at the Physics Department).
From 2010 to 2014 he has been the Vice Rector, delegate to the Research Policy, at the Sapienza University of Rome. In this period he coordinates the different activities aiming to provide financial and human resources to different Departments (about 60) and researchers (about 4000). In this period he also acquired competence in the evaluation of the research products.
In the period 2009-2010 he has been co-proponent, from 2011 coordinator and from 2015 director of the Center for Life Nano Science (CLNS). CLSN is a laboratory of the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), established in Rome, in close contact with the Sapienza University. The center has been funded for the first 5 (2011-2015) years (20 MEuro) and recently re-funded for 5 more years (2016-2020). The mission of the center is the study of two specific pathologies (ALS and Brain Cancer) with an interdisciplinary (better say Convergent ) effort. The almost 30 researchers and 30 PhD student of the center are from different disciplines: Biochemistry, Biology, Chemistry, Engineering, Medicine, Physics and they work together, each one bringing her/his own experience and tools, learning a common language to conduct research in a integrate fashion.
More infos on the CLNS are in: https://www.iit.it/it/centri/clns-sapienza-roma
He served and serves in different committees of the University of Rome "La Sapienza", the Istituto Nazionale per la Fisica della Materia (INFM, then INFM-CNR), the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (member of the Scientific Advisor Committee from 1999 to 2007, member and head of the Italian delegation of the Council), the Laboratorio Europeo Spettroscopie non Lineari , LENS (former member of the Directive Council), and the European Community (former member of the ESFRI panel on Soft X-ray Free Electron Lasers , referee for FP7 and ERC projects).
Other duties have been:
Member of the Large Academic Senato , Sapienza University (2001-2003).
Member of the Directive Council of LENS (2001-2004).
Member of the INFM Synchrotron Light committee (2001-2006).
Member of the committee for the Innovation of Research Policy , Sapienza University (2007-2014).
Member of the executive committee of the Department Directors, Sapienza University (2009-2010).
Sapienza delegate at the Italian Space Agency (2012-2014).
Minister of Research delegate for the restrutturing of the INFN (2010/2011).
Teaching and Mentoring activity
During the career, previously at the University of L Aquila, then at the Sapienza University of Rome, he gave lectures for the Physics program in:
Experimental physics (first year)
General Physics (first and second year)
Mechanics (first year)
Electromagnetism (second year)
Physics of Liquids (fifth year)
Experimental Condensed Matter Physics (fourth year)
He has been supervisor of about 20 phD students and about 40 master thesis students. Among his students, one is full professor in Italian University, three are Associate professors, many of them are Reearchers and first Researchers at CNR, CNRS, ESRF, Elettra, IIT and other institutions.
Rome, December 10th, 2016