Gianfranco Pacchioni is Vice-Chancellor at the Milan Bicocca University where he has also worked as Director of the Department of Materials Science. He deals with quantum theory of matter with particular reference to inorganic materials and their surfaces, metal clusters (aggregates of few atoms) and nanoparticles.
Graduated in Chemistry in Milan (1978), he obtained a Ph.D. at Freie Universität in Berlin (1984) and worked at the IBM Research Center in Almaden, California, the Polytechnic of Munich, Bavaria, the University of Barcelona, the University of Paris VI and the Fritz-Haber Institute in Berlin. For his research he received the Nasini Medal (1994) and the Pisani Medal (2017) of the Italian Chemical Society, Federchimica National Award (1996), Humboldt Research Award (2005), Pascal Medal of the European Academy of Sciences (2016). He is author of about 500 scientific publications.
He has published some volumes of scientific divulgation: “Ideas to become a material scientist: from paper invention to nanotechnology” (Zanichelli, 2006); “How small is the world: surprises and hopes from nanotechnologies” (Zanichelli, 2008); “Science, quo vadis? Between intellectual passion and market “(Il Mulino, 2017).