ACADEMIA

Starting from 16th June, Prof. Eugenio Coccia is the new director of the National Laboratories of Gran Sasso, the largest underground laboratories in the world for Astroparticle Physics, for the next three years. Coccia, full professor of Gravitational Physics at the Physics Department of the Faculty of Science of the University of Rome Tor Vergata, succeeds Prof. Alessandro Bettini, at the end of his six-years charge/commission. Coccia, graduated in Physics in 1980 at the University of Rome "La Sapienza", has mainly carried out his activity at CERN and in the INFN National Laboratories of Frascati, working at the realization of the cryogenic detectors EXPLORER and NAUTILUS, at the moment the most sensitive in continuous operation all over the world for the detection of Gravitational Waves. E. Coccia has held prestigious offices as for instance Chairman of the Scientific National Committee for Astroparticle and Neutrino Physics of the INFN, task left after the new election; at present time he is President of the Italian Society of General Relativity and Gravitational Physics from 2000 to 2004.