Gaetano Agnello, administrative officer at the LNS

LNS employee since 1990 and Head of the Scientific Information Service. He graduated in Modern Literature at the University of Catania in 1987. He deals with the scientific documentation and public relations for the communication of the research activities.

Diana Carbone, researcher at the LNS

She got her PhD in physics at the University of Catania in 2013 discussing a thesis about the first experimental evidence of the Giant Pairing Vibration observed via two-neutron transfer reactions. Her scientific activity in INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Sud involves mainly nuclear structure and direct reaction mechanisms studies in experiments performed using the MAGNEX magnetic spectrometer. She is now working within the NUMEN project of INFN, in which the double charge-exchange reactions are studied in connection with the neutrinoless double beta decay.  

Carla Distefano, researcher at the LNS

She received a PhD in physics from the Università degli Studi di Catania. She carries out her research activities in the filed of high-energy neutrino astrophysics. Her main activity concerns the development of software dedicated to the simulation and the data analysis of underwater neutrino telescopes as ANTARES and KM3NeT.

In 2019 she received a PhD in Physics from the Univertità degli Studi of Catania with a thesis in the field of high energy neutrino astronomy. She conducts her scientific activity within the ANTARES and KM3NeT collaborations, aiming at the estimation of the sensitivity of the ANTARES and the KM3NeT telescopes to high energy neutrino fluxes produced in Galactic sources. Furthermore, she is also involved in the data acquisition and calibration of the KM3NeT neutrino telescope.

Giovanni Luca Guardo, post-doc researcher at the LNS

He carried out the master thesis and PhD at Laboratori Nazionali del Sud dealing with research both experimental and theoretical. His research concerns the study of nuclear reactions at low energies of astrophysical interest. The innovative Trojan Horse Method developed at LNS is known all over the world.

Nunzia Simona Martorana, postdoc researcher at Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia - University of Catania and LNS

She got the PhD at the University of Catania in 2019, discussing a thesis about the Pygmy Dipole Resonance in the exotic nucleus 68Ni. Her scientific activity concerns the construction of a diagnostic system for the production of radioactive ion beams produced with the FRIBs facility and the new FRAISE facility, currently under construction at LNS. Moreover, she is involved in nuclear physics experiments carried out by means of the CHIMERA and FARCOS multidetector, in the NEWCHIM collaboration.

Sebastiana Maria Puglia, post-doc researcher at the LNS

He received his PhD from the University of Catania in 2011, with a thesis in experimental Nuclear Astrophysics. The research activity carried out at the Laboratori Nazionali del Sud  is framed within Experimental Nuclear Astrophysics and has as its object the study of nuclear reactions at energies of interest for astrophysics through the application of the indirect method called Trojan Horse Method.

Stefano Romano, associate researcher at LNS

Associate professor in Experimental Physics at the Università di Catania since 2012. He works in the filed of Experimental Nuclear Astrophysics. He was the Italian reference person for the ASFIN experiment from 2007 to 2014. Presently, he is the head of the LNS Research Division.

Giuseppe Torrisi, technologist at LNS

Ph.D. degree in Information Engineering from the Università Mediterranea of Reggio Calabria, Reggio Calabria, Italy. His scientific activity is concerned with electromagnetic propagation in microwave generated plasmas produced by ion sources for particle accelerators. In particular, he is currently focused on the development of innovative microwave schemes for plasma heating and diagnostics, in the framework of the PANDORA (Plasmas for Astrophysics, Nuclear Decay Observation and Radiation for Archaeometry) project aiming at studying nuclear β-decay rates in magnetoplasma in stellar-like conditions.