I’m absolutely honored to have received the 2024 Reviewer Excellence Award from the American Physical Society, in recognition of my exceptional peer review contributions to PRD. I strongly believe in the value of peer review and always put significant efforts into ensuring my reviews are detailed and helpful for the authors, while upholding the high standards of the journals I review for: I am therefore very glad my efforts have been officially recognized! For me this award is especially valuable coming from PRD, which is both the journal I review the most for, and the journal where I have published the most papers (including my first one).
Top 2% scientists (2023 edition)
As with last year, for what it’s worth, it looks like my name appeared in the list of top 2% scientists worldwide, compiled by John Ioannidis at Stanford University, and available here. It seems that for the year 2023 I’ve been ranked 2633rd across all fields, and 28th in my area (looks a bit too high, perhaps it’s because some Scopus research evaluation tool thinks my main area is Nuclear & Particle Physics rather than Astronomy & Astrophysics), whereas considering my whole career the numbers become 67934th and 1228th respectively. Again, all the caveats highlighted last year apply.
Top 2% scientists (2022 edition)
For what it’s worth, it looks like my name appeared in the list of top 2% scientists worldwide. The list was compiled by John Ioannidis at Stanford University and can be found here. It appears that for the year 2022 I’ve been ranked 6461st across all fields, and 65th in my area, whereas considering my whole career the numbers become 102993rd and 1929th respectively. Kind of cool, although these numbers really don’t mean anything (I’m one of those whose thinks the FIFA ranking doesn’t mean anything, else Belgium would have won a couple of World Cups already, so let alone ranking scientists!) and should really be taken with a lot of salt!
Receiving the SIGRAV Prize
The official award ceremony for the 2023 SIGRAV Prize (see this earlier news item), during which I received the medal from SIGRAV President Professor Stefano Liberati, was held today during the XXV SIGRAV conference. It is really a great honor to receive this Prize, given the extremely prestigious list of earlier winners. Beyond a symbol of academic recognition, it is of course a symbol of responsibility to continue carrying out quality research and mentoring the younger generations, and I will strive to continue doing so. Upon receiving the Prize I have also officially become a lifetime member of SIGRAV.
SIGRAV Prize!
I am honored to announce that I have been awarded the 2023 SIGRAV Prize (yes, given the day, I did initially think this was an April’s Fool)! This is one of the most prestigious Italian early-career awards in my field, and is awarded by the Italian Society for General Relativity and Gravitation (SIGRAV) to under-40 promising Italian researchers who have made important contributions to the fields of gravitation, astrophysics, and cosmology. It is a true honor to receive this Prize, which boasts a prestigious list of previous winners, back then young but now all tremendously successful researchers and most of them leaders in their fields, among whom (just to name a few): Augusto Sagnotti, Massimo Bianchi, Massimo Giovannini, Paolo Pani, Alessandra Buonanno, Alberto Vecchio, Rosalba Perna, Mariafelicia De Laurentis, Enrico Barausse, Marica Branchesi, and Davide Gerosa. I will be receiving the Prize (a silver medal) and delivering a plenary talk about my work at the XXV SIGRAV conference in Trieste this September, where the other winners will also be awarded (the other SIGRAV Prize has been awarded to Giulia Gubitosi, whereas the Amaldi medals have been awarded to my colleague and collaborator Joe Silk and Gabriele Veneziano). It is always great to be recognized in one’s home country, and I would like to sincerely thank my mentors and collaborators, without whom this would not have been possible!
