Skip to content. Skip to navigation

ICTP Portal

Sections
You are here: Home words Newsletter backissues News 101 News from ICTP 101 - Monitor
Personal tools
Document Actions

News from ICTP 101 - Monitor

monitor

 

Korean Strings
Soo-Jong Rey

Soo-Jong Rey, researcher at the Centre for Theoretical Physics of Seoul National University in Korea and recipient of the 2001 ICTP Prize in honour of Hans Bethe in the field of high energy physics, lectured on "Holographic View of Noncommutative Baryon" at the ICTP Prize award ceremony, which took place in the Centre's Main Lecture Hall on 21 March. Soo-Jong Rey has authored more than 90 papers in the field of string theory, cosmology and particle physics. Among his most noteworthy contributions are the discovery of string solitons and instantons, which have played a crucial role in enhancing scientific understanding of the non-perturbative dynamics of string theory. Such insights culminated in the discovery of various dualities in string theory in the mid-1990s. More recently, Soo-Jong Rey's research has examined the matrix theory formulation of the heterotic string.


Fennessy Departs
Fennessy and Radatti

John Fennessy (8th from left), ICTP director of administration since June 1998, has retired from the UN system after 26 years of service to assume the position of head of administration and finance, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), in Skoplje, Macedonia. During his tenure, the ICTP Main Building and guesthouses underwent major refurbishing, including an unprecedented expansion of the Centre's lecture halls and an upgrading of the cafeterias. Fennessy also spearheaded the drive to hold Trieste's first UN Day at the Centre last fall. Gallieno Denardo has been appointed temporary ICTP director of administration. He assumed his duties on 1 July and will remain at the post until a permanent director is selected. Denardo, who has been associated with ICTP since the 1970s, served as long-time head of the Office of External Activities. He remains responsible for ICTP research and training activities related to lasers and optics.


Trieste: City of Science
Trieste Città della Scienza (Trieste City of Science), an elegant, fully illustrated book with concise but detailed texts on the scientific institutions that comprise the Trieste System, has been published by Aps-Agenzia Promostampa. A ceremony announcing the publication of the book took place at the corporate headquarters of Friulia S.p.A., Trieste, on 24 June. For additional information about the publication, contact sci_info@ictp.trieste.it.

ICTP on the Air
About four million Italians, tuning into the popular Raiuno science programme Superquark on Wednesday evening 26 June, had an opportunity to view a segment that featured Tadele Adamtie Mengesha, a young Ethiopian mathematician attending ICTP's Diploma Course. The segment not only told about Mengesha's recent experience in Trieste but also about his life growing up in Ethiopia, including his years of study at the University of Addis Ababa, where he earned his degree. Film footage for the segment was shot last March. Another television transmission on the Centre, featuring an extensive interview with former ICTP director Miguel Virasoro, was broadcast by Rai International at the end of May.


Retirements
Ines Radatti
(second from right in the photo under "Fennessy Departs"), who had been with the ICTP Publications Office since 1967 and had supervised the office for the past 20 years, retired from the Centre this June.
Marcuzzi

Bruna Marcuzzi, who was in charge of housekeeping at the Centre's guesthouses for the past 19 years, also retired in June. Staff and scientists extend their warm thanks and well wishes to Ines and Bruna.


IN MEMORIAM

Victor Weisskopf, a renowned theoretical physicist who made important contributions to quantum mechanics in Germany in the 1920s and in the USA in the 1970s, died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, on 21 April aged 94. Weisskopf was a member of the first ICTP Scientific Council. Born in Vienna, then the capital of the Austrian-Hungarian empire, Weisskopf served as a group leader of the Manhattan Project in the US during World War II. He witnessed the world's first atomic explosion in Alamogordo, New Mexico, in 1945. In the early 1960s, he served as Director General of CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), based in Geneva, Switzerland.

Martino Rizzotti
, professor of biology at the University of Padua, was Italy's most renowned Italian exobiologist. His research interests ranged from the chemistry of proteins to the evolution of early cells. Rizzotti died in Padua in March at the age of 55. He attended and contributed to all six conferences on chemical evolution that have been organised at ICTP since 1992.



Back to Contentsbackarrow

Home


Powered by Plone This site conforms to the following standards: