Julian Barbour studied mathematics at Cambridge UK (1958-1961) followed by physics and astrophysics in Munich and doctorate in theoretical physics at Cologne (1966-1966). Wishing to study time and Mach's principle free of the 'publish or perish' syndrome, became an independent theoretical physicist with first paper published in Nature in 1964. This led to a very fruitful collaboration with Bruno Bertotti that culminated in the paper "Mach's principle and the structure of dynamical theories" published in Proc. R. Soc. London (1982). Since then he wrote about 50 published papers and published three books: Absolute or Relative Motion? (1989), The End of Time (2000) and The Janus Point (2020). He has been a Visiting Profesor in Physics at the Univeristy of Oxford in the period (2009-2018). More info at Julian Barbour web page.
Silvia De Bianchi is Associate Professor at the University of Milan. Her research interests focus on the history and philosophy of physics, applied AI techniques, philosophy of time, Hermann Weyl’s scientific and philosophical work, and Immanuel Kant’s philosophy. She is PI of the ERC Project PROTEUS (2018-2024) and PI of the COSMOS Project (2021-2026) that develop the philosophical investigation of new concepts at the intersection of the foundations of physics, philosophy and cosmology. More info at Silvia De Bianchi web page.
Stefano Liberati is professor of Astroparticle Physics at SISSA in Trieste, Italy where he has also been Coordinator of the Physics Area, of the Astroparticle Physics PhD curriculum. He is currently the Director of IFPU (Institute for Fundamental Physics of the Universe), President of the Italian Society for General relativity and Gravitational Physics — SIGRAV, and national coordinator for the research initiative on quantum gravity phenomenology of INFN, QUAGRAP. He received a BSc in Physics at the University of Roma "La Sapienza”, and in 2000 a PhD in Astrophysics at SISSA, under the direction of Professor Dennis Sciama. He was a postdoc at the University of Maryland, College Park, in the Gravitation Theory Group. While his research has spanned several aspects of gravitational physics, particle physics and astrophysics, his main active fields of search are quantum gravity phenomenology, analogue gravity, and quantum aspects of black holes. He is author of about 220 publications. He has supervised 19 PhD students and several M.Sc. ones. He is serving as a member of the nominating committee of the ISGRG, the international society for general relativity and gravitation, and of the steering committee of the International Society for Quantum Gravity (ISQG), and of the International Society for Relativistic Quantum information (ISRQI). He has a FQXi honorary membership. He is also member of the scientific council of SISSA MediaLab and an editor of JCAP, Universe, and of the Proceeding of the Royal Society A. More info at Stefano Liberati web page.
Luciano Pietronero studied physics in Rome, then Research Scientist at Xerox Research in Webster USA (1974) and Brown Boveri Research Center (CH) 1975-1983. Full Professor of Condensed Matter Theory at the Univ. of Groningen (NL; 1983-87). Since 1987 Professor of Physics at the Sapienza University of Rome. Founder and director of the Institute for Complex Systems of CNR (2004-2014). Since 2019 President of the Fermi Center (www.cref.it). Broad international experience in academic and industrial enviroments. Leader of a generation of young scientists protagonists of the complexity scene internationally. In 2008 he received the Fermi Prize (highest award of the Italian Physical Society). Recent activity in Economic Complexity applied extensively by the World Bank (for which LP is a Senior Advisor) and by the EU Commission for the evaluation of the Recovery Fund Projects (PNRR). More info at Luciano Pietronero web page.
Roberto Capuzzo Dolcetta is a professor of Theoretical Astrophysics and Fluid-dynamics at the Sapienza University of Roma. He is a theoretical astrophysicist and physicist with specific competence in mathematical and numerical/computational methods. He wrote 250 papers in international journals, 2 books published by Springer Nature (Classical Newtonian Gravity and Physics of Fluids) and one book of science popularization (The Universe) translated in 4 languages. He has a long experience in science communication and has been collaborating with the Italian national television (RAI) for 10 years. He is president of “La gravità”, an association for science popularization with an activity covering more than 20 years of public talks and seminars.
