Francesco Arneodo is an experimental physicist, his main interest is subatomic particle detection, with applications in astrophysics, particle physics and cultural heritage. He did his Master's in Physics at the University of Torino, Italy, and obtained his Ph.D. degree from the University of Rome La Sapienza, after three years of experimental work on cosmic rays and gamma-ray astronomy at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS), Italy. In 2011, being interested also in socio-economic aspects of science, he obtained an MBA degree from the University of Warwick (UK). From 1997 to 2013, he worked at the LNGS, first on liquid argon detectors for neutrino physics, and later on liquid xenon technology for the search of Dark Matter. In 2013 he moved to New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) as visiting faculty. He was tenured as associate professor one year later, and became Professor of Physics in September 2019. He has been chair of the NYUAD Physics Program from 2014 to 2016, and since September 2016 he took the role of Associate Dean of Science. He is part of the Faculty Council of the Gran Sasso Science Institute, a doctoral school in L’Aquila, Italy (that he contributed to create). At NYUAD he established an astro-particle experimental group. One of the main activities of the group is the participation in the XENON programme, an international collaboration that, as of 2019, spans across 11 countries with more than 150 scientists. Between 2004-2018, the XENON Collaboration built and operated three liquid xenon detectors. At the time of their respective operation, each detector was the world’s most sensitive in the search for WIMP-like dark matter, a well established model of dark matter particles. Prof. Arneodo has several active collaborations with institutions in the UAE and abroad, such as the the UAE Space Agency, the Mohammed Bib Rashid Space Center, the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Italian Space Agency, the Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), and CERN. He is co-author of more than 130 publications in international, peer-reviewed journals.

Most research interests for a scientist

His group is also involved in the development of gamma-ray detectors for mini satellites, for the study of Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (TGFs). Emirati students involved in this activity have won, in 2018, the UAE MiniSat challenge, and were awarded with 100,000 USD for the construction of a scientific payload to be launched in orbit in 2020. Another line of research concerns the application of particle and nuclear physics techniques for cultural heritage studies, in particular using X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) as a non destructive tool for the analysis of surfaces of artefacts of artistic or cultural heritage interest. His teaching at NYUAD comprises courses like Advanced Physics Laboratory, Mechanics, Foundations of Sciences, Atom and Energy, Particle Physics.

Specialization

Astrophysics