French Ambassador to Italy, Christian Masset, will visit EGO and Virgo
On Thursday May 27th and Friday May 28th, during a visit to Pisa, French Ambassador to Italy Christian Masset will pay an official visit to a number of academic and research institutions in the area, including the European Gravitational Observatory (EGO). The Ambassador Masset and his wife will be accompanied by the Consul General of France in Milan, Cyrille Rogeau.
The first stop of the visit is the Scuola Normale, on Thursday afternoon. Founded on the model of the École normale supérieure in Paris, the Pisan university school in Piazza dei Cavalieri maintains proven institutional and scientific collaborations with French academic and research institutions. Ambassador Masset will be received by the school’s top management, Director Luigi Ambrosio, Dean of Science Andrea Ferrara, and pro-rectors and delegates representing the entire teaching staff. Ambassador Masset will be shown the exchange agreements and international partnerships, and will be shown particularly significant structures, such as the Library inside Palazzo della Gherardesca. Afterwards, the delegation will meet the French doctoral students currently attending the Scuola Normale.
The following day it will be the turn of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna. The Ambassador will arrive in the morning and will be welcomed by the governing bodies: the Rector Sabina Nuti, the Pro-rector for “Terza Missione” Paolo Dario, the Pro-rector for International Relations Andrea Mina, the Pro-rector for Orientation, Social Mobility and Coordination of Educational Activities Emanuele Rossi, with the participation of representatives of the teaching staff, students and pupils. The Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna will be presented in its training, research and “Third Mission” activities, with particular reference to international agreements and collaborations. On this occasion, Ambassador Masset will visit the headquarters and the church of Sant’Anna.
Ambassador Masset will then move to the Municipality of Cascina, to visit Virgo, at the European Gravitational Observatory (EGO), a consortium founded in 2000 by the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) and joined in 2021 by NIKHEF, the Netherlands Institute of Subatomic Physics. The Ambassador will be welcomed by EGO Director Stavros Katsanevas, INFN President Antonio Zoccoli and the Spokesperson of the Virgo Scientific Collaboration, Giovanni Losurdo, who will present the research activities, the projects connecting with the territory and the citizens and the context of international cooperation of the Virgo Scientific Collaboration (composed of about 700 researchers from 15 countries). The Embassy delegation will then be taken on a tour of the infrastructure of the Virgo interferometer , one of the experiments that played a leading role in the scientific revolution that began with the discovery of gravitational waves.
