INFIERI 2025

1 Sept 2025, 09:00 → 13 Sept 2025, 20:00 Europe/Zurich

University of Pisa and INFN Sezione di Pisa

Registrations are open!

Early registration (reduced fee) deadline: June 15th

General registration deadline: June 30th

(WARNING:  Be aware of online scammers claiming to make accommodation reservations on your behalf. Please ignore such emails and do not reply, click any links, or provide your credit card information. We have NOT commissioned any travel agencies to make arrangements for participants on behalf of the conference organizers.)

Welcome to the 8th Edition of INFIERI:
INtelligent signal processing for FrontIEr Research and Industry

We are excited to announce that the 8th edition of the INFIERI Summer School will take place in Pisa, Italy, from September 1 to 13, 2025. Hosted by the University of Pisa and INFN Sezione di Pisa, with the collaboration of Scuola Normale Superiore, the European Gravitational Observatory, and the University of Siena, this edition promises to continue the legacy of excellence that has defined the INFIERI series.

The INFIERI Summer School offers a unique two-week program designed for M.Sc. students, Ph.D. candidates, postdocs, and early-career researchers. The 2025 edition will maintain the school's tradition of cross-disciplinarity, covering the full signal processing chain critical for developing cutting-edge instruments in areas such as particle physics, astrophysics, nanotechnology, and biomedical engineering.

The program includes expert lectures, keynote talks, and hands-on laboratory sessions, where participants will work closely with leading scientists and industry professionals. The in-person format fosters essential interactions and collaborations, ensuring a rich educational experience. Following the success of the 2023 edition, highly skilled undergraduate students will also be invited to participate based on their academic achievements.

Join us in Pisa for an unparalleled opportunity to advance your knowledge and skills in signal processing and instrumentation.

Lectures & Hands-on Labs on Cross-disciplinary, Cutting-edge Research Fields, and High Technologies Development:

• From Astrophysics (Gravitational Waves, HelioPhysics and Sun Exploration) and Particle Physics (Beyond Higgs/Future accelerators & Quantum Experiments) to new paradigms in Nuclear Fission and Fusion.
• From Advanced semiconductors to Quantum sensing, Nano-technologies,  Nano-Biology and Nano-Medicine.
• From Big Data Transfer, beyond-Moore’s-Law High Performance Computing to AI and Quantum Technologies in Science and Industry.

Target audience: M.Sc., Ph.D., postdoc-level physicists and engineers.

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GDPR_document.pdf

INFIERI2025_Poster.pdf

INFIERI2025-ProgAtGlance2.pdf

PISA-INFIERI2025-Flyer.pdf

Monday 1 September

OPENING DAY

The Academia, Advanced Research Laboratories and Industrial Firms that will contribute to the school in the Pisa area, together with the Host Institutions: University of Pisa and INFN sezione di Pisa will be presented in this session,
The session will also include a brief presentation of the School series Objectives.

Convener: Andrea Rizzi (Universita & INFN Pisa (IT))

The contributing Academia, Advanced Research Laboratories and Industrial Firms that will contribute to the school in the Pisa area, together with the Host Institutions: University of Pisa and INFN sezione di Pisa will be presented in this session,
The session will also include a brief presentation of the School series Objectives.

Lunch time

INTRODUCTORY PLENARY SESSION: PRESENTATION of HANDS-ON LABs

Tuesday 2 September

INTRODUCTORY VISION ON THE 4 THEORETICAL PILARS of this SCHOOL PROGRAM

THE TOPICS COVERED IN THIS SCHOOL SERIES ARE BASED ON 4 THEORETICAL PILARS:
1) ASTRONOMY/ASTROPHYSICS & COSMOLOGY
2) PARTICLE PHYSICS
3) QUANTUM PHYSICS
4) PLASMA PHYSICS
The introductory vision lectures on the last 2 topics has been introduced in the lectures of this school series at the INFIERI2023 school edition.

THE THEORETICAL LECTURES ON EACH OF THIS 4 TOPICS ARE GIVEN BY EXPERTS IN THE FIELD. THEY WILL INTRODUCE THESE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS, CONCENTRATING ON THE MAIN ITEMS, THIS SCHOOL EDITION WILL COVERED.

These theoretical introductions are completed by dedicated masterclasses (i.e. Hands-on theoretical Labs) available to non-expert students in the domain covered by those introductory lectures.

Today: The Lectures and Keynote will be dedicated to 3 ofthe 4 pilars of this school program: Astro & Cosmology, Particle Physics and Plasma Physics  

The introductory vision talk on the fourth pilar, i.e. Quantum Mechanics will be given as a keynote the day after.

1 INTRODUCTORY VISION to ASTRONOMY/ASTROPHYSICS & COSMOLOGY

REFERRING TO GALILEO GALILEI, BUT ALSO TO TWO OF THE MOST IMPORTANT TOPICS NOWADAYS IN THE ASTRO/COSMO FIELD, THIS INFIERI SCHOOL EDITION WILL CONCENTRATE ON GRAVITATIONAL WAVES AND SOLAR PHYSICS (=> Dark matter, dark energy, black holes, gravitational waves, Gravity, Heliophysics..), with in introduction two lecturers:

10:15 COFFEE/TEA BREAK

2 INTRODUCTORY VISION to PARTICLE PHYSICS

PARTICLE PHYSICS FIELD IS AT AN EXCITING TIME, ENTERING IN MANY WAYS IN TERRA INCOGNITA:
HIGGS, BEYOND or BEHIND & WHAT"s ELSE?
WHAT FUTURE DIRECTIONS IN HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS?
WHAT's NEXT??
=> THE THEORETICIANS' POINTS of VIEW:
- MICHELANGELO MANGANO (TH Division, CERN, CH)
- RICCARDO RATTAZZI (EPFL, LAUSANNE, CH)

Speakers: Michelangelo MANGANO (TH Division, CERN, CH), Riccardo RATTAZZI (tbc) (EPFL - Ecole Polytechnique Federale Lausanne, CH)

Lunch time

Parallel session on Hands-on Lab

Coffee break

KEYNOTE 1: THE CHALLENGES OF QUANTUM COMPUTING

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENERGETICS and. ECONOMICS
ABSTRACT: Olivier Ezratty will present the state of the art of quantum computing across various qubit modalities and algorithms classes, and how the academic and industry vendor ecosystem is planning to build utility-grade fault-tolerant quantum computers in the next decades. He will frame the wealth and interactions between the various scientific, engineering, and economical challenges ahead to deliver on these promises. It relates to scaling qubit quantity and quality, improving manufacturing practices, developing efficient quantum error correction techniques, creating quantum computers interconnect solutions, optimizing energetic footprints, designing efficient algorithms and also making sure these systems become affordable for their users.

SPEAKER: Olivier EZRATTY is a freelance quantum engineer, author, trainer, teacher, and researcher, mostly known for “Understanding Quantum Technologies”, his comprehensive open-source book on quantum technologies (September 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024, 1,554 pages). He is a teacher and lecturer on quantum and classical technologies at various top-level Engineering schools and Universities in France such as: EPITA, CentraleSupelec, Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay, and other Universities. He works for a diverse set of government institutions and industry organizations, as a referent expert for Bpifrance, Agence Nationale de la Recherche (France) (ANR), the European Commission and venture capital funds. He is also one of the cofounders of the Quantum Energy Initiative. He has an Msc in Computer Science from CentraleSupelec.

Wednesday 3 September

FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH & ADVANCED HIGH TECH

THREE ADVANCED HIGH TECH TOPICS IMPACTING THE SIGNAL PROCESSING AT THE FRONT-END OF THE INSTRUMENTS ARE PRESENTED IN THOSE LECTURES:
- THE FIRST ONE IS RELATED TO ADVANCES IN SENSOR TECHNOLOGIES AND VERY DEEP SUB-MICROELECTRONICS TO DETERMINE WITH HIGHEST PRECISION, SPACE POSITION AND TIME (4D SPACE) PLUS IN SOME CASES ENERGY (5D SPACE).
- THE SECOND TOPIC IS ON QUANTUM SENSING WHICH ALLOWS FOR EXTREMELY PRECISE MEASUREMENTS. IT TRANSLATES INTO QUANTUM SENSING TECHNOLOGIES WHICH HAVE. A BROAD RANGE OF APPLICATIONS.
-THE THIRD ONE INTRODUCES TO THE INCREASING ROLE OF SUPRACONDUCTIVITY.

3 DESIGN and OPTIMIZATION OF ACCELERATOR MAGNETS

ABSTRACT: For the LHC magnets, the coherence between beam-physics requirements, magnet design, and magnetic measurements has been well established. This is far less evident in future accelerator projects. Hysteresis and eddy currents in iron-dominated magnets affect accelerator performance during fast field ramps to gain circulating beam time or when suppressing demagnetization cycles to save energy.

We also review the challenges of the next generation of high-field superconducting magnets that will require coupled electromagnetic, mechanical, thermal, and electric simulations from the onset of the design process. We go through the different design steps and the required tools for numerical field computation and optimization. In simulating transient effects in quenching superconducting magnets, we are confronted with the coupling of physical subsystems and extreme nonlinearities and uncertainties in the material parameters.

LECTURER: Stephan Russenschuck is a Principle Applied Physicist in the Accelerator Technology (TE) Department of CERN (CH). He is the leader of the test and magnetic measurement section (TM) in the magnet group of the TE department. For 10 years he was the chairman of the technical and doctoral student committee (TSC) at CERN.
Dipl.-Ing and Dr.-Ing. Degrees in electrical engineering in 1986 and 1990 both from the Technical University Darmstadt.
University Lecturer (Habilitation) for Theory of Electromagnetic Fields at the University of Vienna, Austria, 2000.
Responsible for the electromagnetic design of the LHC main dipole magnets during the construction period of the LHC. and later for the magnet polarities and the electrical quality assurance of the LHC machine.
Research interests: mathematical optimization and numerical field computation techniques in support of magnet design, magnetic measurements, and accelerator operation. Author of the numerical field computation program ROXIE and of the book “Field computation for accelerator magnets” published at Wiley-VCH.
Member in the Board of the International COMPUMAG Society for 25 years. For the last 18 years he also serves in the organizing committee of the ICAP conference on computational accelerator physics.
Chairman of the editorial board of MT17 (magnet technology) and of the ICAP06 conference.

Speaker: Stephan RUSSENSCHUK (TE Department, CERN, CH)

4 QUANTUM SENSING TECH

Speaker: Steven WORM (Honorarprofessor, Humboldt Universität Berlin, Department of Physics Head of Astroparticle Detector R&D @ DESY)

10:20 COFFEE.TEA BREAK

5 TRACKING PARTICLES: BREAKING SPACExTIME LIMITS

4D/5D Revolution in sensors and associated frontend electronics

Lunch time

Parallel session on Hands-on Lab

Coffee break

KEYNOTE 2: INTELLIGENCE ON DETECTORS: THE HEP QUANTUM EXPERIMENTS AS an EXAMPLE CASE.

This lecture will present the revolution of quantum technology on HEP experiments and how it introduces intelligence on the detectors in Particle Physics experiments with some show cases.

6 QUANTUM OBSERVABLES in PARTICLE PHYSICS

Speaker: Fabio MALTONI (Universite Catholique de Louvain (UCL) (BE) and Università di Bologna)

7 QUANTUM HEP EXPERIMENTS

Speaker: Steven WORM (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron and Humboldt Universität Berlin (DE))

Thursday 4 September

INTELLIGENCE on DETECTORS, THE HEP CASE: PREPARING THE HEP FUTURE

The YEAR 2025 IS A NEW IMPORTANT YEAR on the PATH TO FINAL DECISIONS ON THE NEXT GENERATION HEP MACHINE(S) TO BE BUILT OVER THE WORLD.
THIS 4 HOURS SESSION WILL REVIEW THE. PROJECTS, i.e. THE LEPTON HIGGS FACTORY(IES), A 100 TEV HADRON COLLIDER, A 3-10 TeV MUON COLLIDER, from the PHYSICS. and DETECTORS VIEWPOINT & WITH A FOCUS ON THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN THE DIFFERENT PROJECTS.

THIS 4 HOURS SESSION WILL BE ORGANIZED TO REFLECT THE INTERPLAY & CHALLENGES BETWEEN THE MAIN FUTURE PROJECTS

8 OVERVIEW of the PROJECTS for THE FUTURE of HEP, WORLDWIDE

Speaker: Frank ZIMMERMANN (Beams Department, Accelerators and Beam Physics group , Lepton Accelerators and Facilities section, BE-ABP-LAF, CERN, CH)

9 MODEL-BASED SYSTEMS ENGINEERING for the NEXT GENERATION of NORMAL ACCELERATOR SUPRACONDUCTING MAGNETS

S. Russenschuck holds the role of principle apply physicist at the Technology Department TE at CERN (CH). He is the leader of the test and magnetic measurement section in the magnet group.

We present Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) as a methodology that enables data-driven modeling and traceable design workflows of magnets and field transducers.

The aim is to create models updated by magnetic measurements, which allow the extrapolation of performance parameters regarding different powering cycles, manufacturing defects, and varying material parameters. To enable MBSE processes, we must place six “columns” on a common foundation: the physical objects (magnets and field transducers), data layers (numerical models and measured data), and software tools for design and analysis.

Data-driven models (hybrid twins) contain the physical description of a nonlinear dynamical system, the simulated system's response and observation functions, and a disturbance model derived from measurements.

Speaker: Stephan RUSSENSCHUCK (TE Department, CERN, CH)

10 THE FCC PROJECT for FUTURE of HEP at CERN

Speaker: Guy WILKINSON (tbc) (University of Oxford (GB))

10:45 COFFEE/TEA BREAK

11 A 100 TeV HADRONIC COLLIDER: THE DETECTOR CHALLENGES TO FACE THE NEW PHYSICS REACHES

Speaker: Werner RIEGLER (EP Department, CERN, CH)

12 THE CePC/SppC for FUTURE of HEP in CHINA

Speaker: Joao GUIMARAES da COSTA (IHEP and CAS, CHINA)

13 A HIGH ENERGY, 3-10 TEV MUON COLLIDER

Speaker: Isobel OJALVO (Princeton University, USA)

Lunch time

Parallel session on Hands-on Lab

Coffee break

KEYNOTE 3: TOWARDS THE FUTURE OF PARTICLE PHYSICS

FUTURE of HIGH ENERGY PARTICLE PHYSICS:
As a unique test bench for fundamental research on elementary constitutents of the matter and of the Universe and for the development of a large scope of cutting-edge technologies for fundamental and applied research as well as for the Society.

This keynote will extend the scope of the lectures given on the plenary session of September 4. It will include the participation of some authorities of the Particle Physics international community..
The keynote will be opened to a larger audience.

SPEAKERS:
- Roberto TENCHINI, INFN-Pisa and President of INFN Commissione Scientifica Nazionale 1, Fisica delle Particelle, INFN-CNS1
- Yifang WANG, Director of the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) from 2011 to 2024. Wang has been elected member of the CAS, foreign member of the United States National Academy of Sciences，foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Academician of the Academy of Sciences of Developing Countries.
- Hitoshi MURAYAMA (LBL, USA) Professor, Former Director, Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU), University of Tokyo, currently Chair of the P5, Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (USA).
Hitoshi Murayama is a well-known theoretical particle physicist who works broadly, even on astrophysics, cosmology, and condensed matter physics. He has been a professor in the University of California, Berkeley, since 2000, and is also the founding director of the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) at the University of Tokyo, serving from 2007 to 2018. Born in Japan, lived in Germany for four years and in the US for 21 years, served on advisory committees around the world, he is a multicultural global denizen. In October 2014, he was invited to give a speech at the United Nations headquarters in New York about how science unites people and brings peace. He received the Yukawa Commemoration Prize in Theoretical Physics and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Friday 5 September

THE APPLIED PHYSICS DAY: RENEWABLE ENERGIES, THE NUCLEAR ENERGY CASE

This session will introduce this active research field and stress the main R&D developments on both the Nuclear Fission and Nuclear Fusion applications on this field. It will also show how these research activities are benefitting from European and or international Research Laboratories such as MYRRHA and ITER.
It will briefly also introduce in those lectures the broad field of applications beyond the use as Energy source.

The industrial aspects will be developed in the Symposium on High Tech and Fundamental Science.
Several Hands on Lab are foreseen for this important overall topic.

Convener: Cinzia DA VIA (Manchester University (UK) and SUNY-STONYBROOK, NY, USA)

Nuclear Energies: Challenges, Projects, New Paradigm

Interplay with fundam. Science

14 GLACIERS and CLIMATE CHANGE: THE LONG- and SHORT-TERM PERSPECTIVES

Speaker: Prof. Matteo SPAGNOLO is a glaciologist at the University of Aberdeen and the director of the Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment and Society (SAGES). He obtained a BSc in Natural Sciences at the University of Pisa (Italy), an MSc in GIS and Remote Sensing at the IAO in Firenze (Italy), a Geology PhD at the University of Genova (Italy), before moving to the UK in 2007. Matteo applies various field, Geographic Information System and remote sensing techniques to the study of glacial landforms and glacier response to climate and other forcing (e.g. volcanism). He has worked in alpine and subglacial environments, from the Andes to the Arctic, looking at land surface, subsurface and seabed evidence of past and present-day glacier dynamics. His current research includes the history of glaciations, the interaction between volcanoes and glaciers, the recent evolution of glaciers in the Himalayas in response to climate, and glaciers as water resources under current/future scenarios of global warming.

Abstract: Climate represents the main driver controlling the growth and demise of Earth’s ice masses, which in turn play a major role in many physical and biological processes, including sea level, ocean currents, ecosystems, and climate itself, not to mention human activities. Thus, it is no surprise that shrinking and disappearing glaciers are often referred to as amongst the most dramatic evidence of recent, increased warming. Climate, and hence glaciers, have changed often in historical and geological times. The past evolution of glaciers, and history of glaciations, can therefore be used as a way to decipher past climate changes, essential to contextualise current climatic trends and scenarios, and to refine future predictions. In this talk, Prof. Matteo Spagnolo will use evidence of past glaciations (landforms and sediments), ice cores and other geological climate proxies to present a fascinating “recent” (hundred years timescale) and geological (million years timescale) overview of what we know about the Earth’s climate history.

Speaker: Matteo SPAGNOLO (University of Aberdeen)

15 RESEARCH and DEVELOPMENTS ON NUCLEAR FISSION; ALTERNATIVES TOWARDS A NEW WAY TO USE NUCLEAR FISSION FOR ENERGY APPLICATIONS

INTRODUCTION TO NUCLEAR FISSION ENERGY and MYRRHA A MULTIPURPOSE ACCELERATOR-DRIVEN SYSTEM FOR R&D PRE-DESIGN STUDY COMPLETION

MYRRHA is a project presently under development of a research reactor aiming to demonstrate the feasibility of the Accelerator Driven System (ADS) and the lead-cooled fast reactor concepts, with various research applications from spent-fuel irradiation to material irradiation testing. A linear accelerator is under development to provide a beam of fast proton that hits a spallation target, producing neutrons. These neutrons are necessary to keep the nuclear reactor running when operated in sub-critical mode, but to increase its versatility the reactor is also designed to operate in critical mode with fast neutron and thermal neutron zones.

MYRRHA is the world’s first large scale Accelerator Driven System project at power levels scalable to industrial systems. MYRRHA offers unparalleled research opportunities in spent nuclear fuel, nuclear medicine and fundamental and applied physics. The MYRRHA consortium welcomes international partners and investors.(https://myrrha.be).

Speaker: Hamid Ait ABDERRAHIM (General Manager of MYRRHA aisbl)

16 RESEARCH and DEVELOPMENTS on NUCLEAR FUSION: MAGNETIC CONFINEMENT and LASER FUSION

Lunch time

Parallel session on Hands-on Lab

Coffee break

KEYNOTE 4: EXPLORING THE SUN: SOLAR PHYSICS FROM GALILEO GALILEI TO XXI CENTURY'?

SPEAKERS:
- Milan MAKSIMOVITCH (Observatoire de Paris, PSL, and LESIA (PSL&CNRS), Paris, FR)
and
- Nour RAWAFI (John Hopkins University, and NASA, USA)

Solar Physics (Heliophysics) is the branch of astrophysics that specializes in the study of the Sun. It intersects with many disciplines of pure physics and astrophysics.
This keynote will be shared by two eminent Solar Physicists. They will give an introduction on this part of Astrophysics and present the latest developments in this Field and the main challenges ahead.
This keynote will serve as an introduction to the one on Saturday where these two lecturers will present two main worldwide Sun exploration project they are leading.

17 Lecture 1

Dr. Milan MAKSIMOVITCH:
Main scientific interests lie in solar and heliospheric physics and in particular in :
- Models of Solar Wind formation and acceleration
- In-situ measurements in the Solar Wind
- Study and modelling of the radio emissions associated with the Coronal

Speaker: Milan MAKSIMOVTICH (Observatoire de Paris, PSL and LESIA Lab (PSL and CNRS), Paris, FR)

18 Lecture 2

Dr. Rawafi’s research encompasses a wide range of solar and heliospheric areas with an emphasis on the dynamic solar corona via the analysis of spectral and imaging observations, theory, and modeling. His primary contributions have been in the areas of solar magnetic fields, coronal spectropolarimetry, coronal plumes and jets, coronal mass ejections, coronal shockwaves, solar wind, solar energetic particles, and cometary physics.

Speaker: Nour RAWAFI (John Hopkins University and NASA)

Saturday 6 September

08:30 BUS TRANSPORTAION

INTELLIGENCE ON DETECTORS: THE ASTROPHYSICS CASE

N.B. The school is hosted on Saturday Sept 6, at the EUROPEAN GRAVITATIONAL OBSERVATORY, EGO. It. will include a visit of this Laboratory: https://www.ego-gw.it It.
The Saturday hands-on Lab is reported to a special hands-on Lab session on Monday September (see Monday Sept 8 schedule).

THE FIRST PART OF THE "JOURNEY OF THE SIGNAL" FROM THE FRONT END OF THE INSTRUMENTS TO THE. FAR END PROCESSORS, DEDICATED TO "INTELLIGENCE ON DETECTORS", ENDS ON THE SATURDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK, WITH THE ASTRO/COSMO CASE.

THE EXAMPLE-CASES WILL BE DEDICATED TO THE PROJECTS ON THE TWO TOPICS PRESENTED IN THIS SCHOOL EDITION, i.e. GW & THE SUN PHYSICS.

19 NEXT GENERATION OF GW EXPERIMENTS: part 1

10:50 COFFEE/TEA BREAK

20 VISIT OF EGO LABORATORY

12:30 LUNCH AT EGO LABORATORY

21 NEXT GENERATION OF GW EXPERIMENTS: part 2

17:30 COFFEE/TEA BREAK

KEYNOTE 5: EXPLORATION OF THE SUN: THE NEW INSTRUMENTS AND EXPERIENCES

22 SOLAR ORBITER (ESA)

Dr. Milan MAKSIMOVITCH (Director of Research at PSL-LESIA/CNRS)
The LESIA (Laboratory of Space Studies and Instrumentation in Astrophysics) is one of the 5 Scientific Departments of the Paris Observatory and also a CNRS Laboratory (mixed Research Unit of CNRS).
LESIA is associated with: Observatoire de Paris-PSL (home institution) ; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); Sorbonne University and Université Paris Cité.It is one of the largest French Labs of research in Astrophysics.
LESIA’s primary role:
- The design and implementation of scientific instrumentation in space and on the ground;
- Analysis and interpretation of scientific observations made by use of the produced instruments;
- Development of advanced techniques applied in ground-based instruments and in space instruments.

Milan Maskimovitch's current Experience in Space Instrumentation
- 03/2007-currently : PI of the Radio & Plasma Waves instrument on ESA’s Solar Orbiter, Co-I on the EPD, SWA and MAG instruments on this mission
- 09/2010-currently : Lead CoI for the FIELDS instrument on Parker Solar Probe
- 10/2006-currently : co-PI of the SWAVES instrument on STEREO

Speaker: Milan MAKSIMOVITCH (Observatoire de PARIS, FR)

23 PARKER SOLAR PROBE (NASA)

Dr. Nour Rawafi, is an astrophysicist and the project scientist for NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission, launched in 2018. He is a member of the American Geophysical Union, American Astronomical Society (AAS), and AAS Solar Physics Division.
Awards:
2019 NASA Silver Achievement Medal Award for Parker Solar Probe
2019 AAS Neil Armstrong Award for Parker Solar Probe
2016 APL Outstanding Special Publication Award for “The Solar Probe Plus Mission: Humanity’s First Visit to Our Star,” published in Space Science Reviews
2016 SES/SRP Merit Award for exceptional impact, expertise, and performance
2016 Parker Solar Probe Special Achievement Award for outstanding contributions to the mission

Speaker: Nour E. RAWAFI (NASA and J. Hopkins, USA)

19:30 BUS TRANSPORTATION

Sunday 7 September

FREE DAY: VISITS of some key places in TUSCANY

THE WONDERFUL TUSCANY WHERE PISA IS LOCATED IS A RENOWN PLACE NOT ONLY IN ITALY BUT ALSO IN THE WORLD, FOR THE MARVELOUS LANDSCAPE, THE IMMENSE CULTURAL HERITAGE AND AT THE SAME TIME THE HIGHLY SKILLED EDUCATIONAL, INDUSTRIAL AND RESEARCH MANY FACETED ACTIVITIES.

NOTE: ALSO ORGANIZED BY FIRENZE-INFN A VISIT TO THE CULTURAL HERITAGE LABORATORIES

Monday 8 September

Hands-on Lab parallel session:

PLEASE NOTE: This is the 5th Hands-on Lab session. It replaces the one on Saturday afternoon which is thus moved to Monday morning.

11:30 WALKING FROM THE LABS TO THE LECTURE HALL + COFFEE BREAK

----------> FROM HANDS-ON LAB SESSION to LECTURE HALL <------------

ADVANCES in DATA TRANSFER TECHNOLOGIES

THE SECOND WEEK IS DEDICATED TO THE "JOURNEY OF THE DATA" EXTRACTED FROM THE INSTRUMENTS TO THE FAR END DATA PROCESSING. IT WILL FOCUS ON THE NEW TECHNOLOGIES ON DATA TRANSMISSION, AND ADVANCED SIGNAL AND DATA PROCESSING BASED ON IA & QUANTUM TECHNOLOGIES AS WELL AS NANOTECHNOLOGIES.

IT WILL START WITH THE ADVANCES on DATA TRANSMISSION:
- One hour introductory lecture, at the end of the morning,
- A lecture on Quantum Communication on the Quantum Day, will complete this topic.

Hands on Labs dedicated to the data transmission will allow to deepen the knowledge on this important topic in the signal processing in both fundamental and applied research.

24 CHALLENGES & SOLUTIONS TO THE EVER INCREASING HIGH RATE/HIGH DATA TRANSMISSION IN RESEARCH (and daily life)

Speaker: Massimo CARBONI (tbc) (GARR and La Sapienza, Rome)

Lunch time

Parallel session on Hands-on Lab

Coffee break

KEYNOTE 6: TBA...IN FIERI...

THIS KEYNOTE IS IN PREPARATION...IN FIERI...

Convener: TBA

SOLID→ LIQUID→ GAS→ PLASMA. PLASMA IS THE MOST ABUNDANT ENERGY SOURCE OF THE UNIVERSE AND YET SO MYSTERIOUS.  THIS 4TH STATE OF THE MATTER IS EVERYWHERE IN THE TOPICS COVERED IN THE SCHOOL, FROM ASTRO/COSMO, THE SUN TO NUCLEAR FUSION.

Tuesday 9 September

POST MOORE, POST EXASCALE HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING ERA

AFTER DATA TRANSMISSION, THE NEXT CHALLENGING STEP IS ON HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING, HPC.

THIS SESSION TACKLES THE NOVEL DEVELOPMENTS/ADVANCES ON BOTH HARDWARE & SOFTWARE.

The cross-disciplinary and worldwide facets of this field will be highlighted by experts and key projects from Europe (EuroHPC-JU Enterprise), Asia (Tokyo University) and USA (Keynote talk). Some of them will also organized hands-on Labs (e.g. Tokyo University representatives).

25 NEW CHALLENGES AND DEVELOPMENTS ON HPC, THE EUROHPC-JU ENTERPRISE

Marco ALDINUCCI: Full Professor & Head of the Parallel Computing group at the Computer Science Department of the University of Torino

Director of the HPC Key Technologies and Tools (HPC-KTT) national lab of the Italian National Consortium for Informatics (CINI)

Speaker: Marco ALDINUCCI (TORINO UNIVERSITY, Computer Science Department)

26 DISAGGREGATING SYSTEM ARCHITECTURES (e.g. MEMORY SYSTEMS) FOR FUTURE HPC AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WORKLOAD

Robert PATTI, CeO of NHANCED-Semiconductors (USA): with staff experience averaging more than 20 years, our seasoned team of design engineers and manufacturing professionals have solid expertise in high-density, low-power products. They work in deep submicron nodes with a keen eye for cost-size-weight reduction and design sustainability. They have created sensors, FPGAs, SerDes, memory chips (DRAM, MRAM, and RRAM), ASICs, AI systems, and many other ingenious devices.

As pioneers in advanced packaging and heterogeneous integration, our team boasts an admirable record of creating successful state-of-the-art products (https://nhanced-semi.com/about/)

Speaker: Robert PATTI (CeO NHanced-Semiconductors, USA)

10:30 COFFEE/TEA BREAK

27 INNOVATIVE SUPERCOMPUTING, by Integrations of Simulations/Data/Learning , ON LARGE-SCALE HETEROGENEOUS SYSTEMS

Lecturer: KENGO NAKAJIMA, Professor in the Supercomputing Research Division of the Information Technology Center at the University of Tokyo since 2008. Prior to joining the University of Tokyo in 2004, he spent 19 years in industry.
Also a deputy director of RIKEN R-CCS (Center for Computational Science) since 2018.
His research interest covers computational mechanics, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), numerical linear algebra, parallel iterative algorithms, parallel preconditioning methods, multigrid methods, parallel programming models, adaptive mesh refinement (AMR), and parallel visualization.
He holds a B.Eng (1985, Aeronautics, University of Tokyo), an MS (1993, Aerospace Engineering, University of Texas at Austin), and a PhD (2003, Engineering Mechanics, University of Tokyo).

Abstract: Recently, supercomputing has been changing dramatically. Integration/convergence of Simulation/Data/Learning (S+D+L) is important towards Society 5.0 proposed by Japanese Government, which enables integration of cyber space and physical space. In 2015, we started the BDEC project (Big Data & Extreme Computing) for development of supercomputers and software for integration of (S+D+L). In May 2021, we started operation of the Wisteria/BDEC-01. It is the first BDEC system, which consists of computing nodes for computational science and engineering with A64FX (Odyssey), and those for Data Analytics/AI with NVIDIA A100 GPU’s (Aquarius). We also develop a software platform “h3-Open-BDEC” for integration of (S+D+L) on the Wisteria/BDEC-01, which is designed for extracting the maximum performance of the supercomputers with minimum energy consumption focusing on (1) Innovative method for numerical analysis by adaptive precision, accuracy verification and automatic tuning, (2) Hierarchical Data Driven Approach based on machine learning, and (3) Software for heterogeneous systems. Integration of (S+D+L) by h3-Open-BDEC enables significant reduction of computations and power consumption, compared to those by conventional simulations. In January 2025, we started to operate the Miyabi system together with University of Tsukuba. Miyabi consists of GPU Cluster with 1,120 nodes of NVIDIA GH200 (Miyabi-G) and 380 sockets of Intel Max 9480 with HBM2e. In this talk, I will mainly introduce the results related to the integration of (S+D+L) using h3-Open-BDEC on Wisteria/BDEC-01, but will also provide an overview of new innovations using Miyabi.

N.B. A dedicated Hands-on Lab is organised on this advanced HPC topic in collaboration with the U. of Tokyo IT Center.

Speaker: Kengo NAKAJIMA (Information Technology Center, The University of Tokyo, Japan RIKEN Center for Computational Science (R-CCS), Japan)

Lunch time

Parallel session on Hands-on Lab

Coffee break

KEYNOTE 7: COMPUTING BEYOND MOORE'S LAW

SPEAKER: John SHALF ; CTO for the National Energy Research Supercomputing Center and Department Head for Computer Science and Data Sciences at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL).

BIO: Coauthor of over 60 publications in the field of parallel computing software and HPC technology, including three best papers and the widely cited report “The Landscape of Parallel Computing Research: A View from Berkeley” (with David Patterson and others). He also coauthored “ExaScale Software Study: Software Challenges in Extreme Scale Systems,” which sets the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s (DARPA’s) information technology research investment strategy for the next decade. He was a member of the Berkeley Lab/NERSC team that won a 2002 R&D 100 Award for the RAGE robot.

Before joining Berkeley Lab in 2000, Shalf was a research programmer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois and a visiting scientist at the Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationphysick/Albert Einstein Institute in Potsdam, Germany, where he co-developed the Cactus code framework for computational astrophysics.

Wednesday 10 September

THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE DAY

AI IS INDEED PLAYING AN INCREASING KEY ROLE AT ALL STAGES OF THE SIGNAL AND DATA PROCESSING.

THIS VAST TOPIC WILL BE COMPLEMENTED BY A DEDICATED SESSION AT THE SYMPOSIUM ON HIGH TECH x FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH and SEVERAL HANDS-ON LABS

28 AI FAST EVOLVING TECHNOLOGY: WHERE DO WE STAND? MAIN CHALLENGES, LIMITS and PERSPECTIVES

Speaker: Francois CHARTON (TBC) (Research Engineer au Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR), META (Paris))

10:20 COFFEE/TEA BREAK

29 AI FOR FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH: THE HEP CASE

Speaker: Maurizio PIERINI (EP Department, CERN, CH)

30 AI EMBEDDED IN HARDWARE: from smart pixels to eFPGA and the multiple applications.

Including ML-based qubit readout

Speaker: James HIRSCHAUER (LPC, Fermi National Laboratory, FNAL, Il, USA)

Lunch time

Parallel session on Hands-on Lab

Coffee break

KEYNOTE 8: GOVERNING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: BUILDING TRUST THROUGH ETHICS, LAW and TECHNOLOGY

SPEAKER: Francesco MARCELLONI (University of PISA), Professor of Data Processing Systems at the Department of Information; Vice Rector of UNIPI for international cooperation and relations, Head of the AI-DII (Artificial Intelligence Research & Development Group) at UNIPI.

ABSTRACT: Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially Generative AI, presents both transformative opportunities and significant risks, ranging from bias and opacity to misuse and societal impact. This talk will explore how these risks can be addressed through a combination of technological safeguards, ethical frameworks, and regulatory measures. Focusing on the intersection of technology, law, and ethics, it will examine emerging governance models, such as the EU AI Act, and address the challenges involved in building trustworthy, human-centered AI systems.

BIO: graduated in Electronic Engineering in 1991 and Ph.D. in Electronics, Information and Telecommunications Engineering in 1996, both from the University of Pisa. After a period of time spent at the University of Twente (the Netherlands), his academic career has continued at the University of Pisa first as a researcher, then as associate professor and finally as a full professor in Data Processing Systems.
Francesco Marcelloni’s teaching activities have been centred around the core subjects of the degree course in Computer Engineering and the advanced courses in Data mining for the Master’s degree course in Computer Engineering and Bionics Engineering. From 2003 to 2007, he headed three educational projects, financed by the Tuscan Region, for vocational modules in new university degrees.
His research interests are aimed principally at computational intelligence and its engineering applications, with original and innovative contributions relative to fuzzy classification, multi-objective evolutionary algorithms, genetic fuzzy systems and fuzzy clustering algorithms. Recently, his research focused on Big Data, proposing new classifiers on the Spark and Hadoop platforms, on smart cities, with new approaches to the identification of traffic accidents, monitoring energy consumption in the home and on data compression in sensor nodes.

Thursday 11 September

THE QUANTUM DAY

THE EXPERIMENTAL OUTCOMES FROM QUANTUM PHENOMENA LEADING TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF QUANTUM TECHNOLOGIES ARE PLAYING AN INCREASING KEY ROLE AT ALL STAGES OF THE SIGNAL AND DATA PROCESSING e.g. QUANTUM SENSING, QUANTUM COMPUTING AND QUANTUM COMMUNICATION.
Lectures in this school session have already introduced this overall topic with 1) QUANTUM PHYSICS PHENOMENA and QUANTUM TECHNOLOGIES and 2) QUANTUM SENSING, plus 3) THE QUANTUM HEP EXPERIMENTS.

HERE THE SESSION WIIL CONCENTRATE ON QUANTUM COMPUTING & QUANTUM COMMUNICATION which play or will play essential roles in the data transmission and data processing.

31 QUANTUM COMPUTING

10:20 COFFEE OR TEA BREAK

32 QUANTUM COMMUNICATION ON SHORT and LONG DISTANCES AND QUANTUM INTERNET

Speaker: Luis TRIGO VIDARTE (IFCO, Barcelona, SP)

Lunch time

Parallel session on Hands-on Lab

Coffee break

KEYNOTE 9, "SPECIAL KEYNOTE" : MENS SANA IN CORPORE SANO

This special "keynote" indeed follow the traditional session on "Mens sans in corpora sano" which includes this year the choice between participating to either the RUN or the FOOTBALL session.

THEY ARE OPENED TO THE PARTICIPATION OF BOTH THE SCHOOL ATTENDANTS AND THE LECTURERS/LAB ORGANIZERS.
ALL ARE STRONGLY ENCOURAGED TO PARTICIPATE and AWARDS WILL BE DELIVERED TO THE WINNERS.

Friday 12 September

NANO-TECHNOLOGY/-BIOLOGY/-MEDICINE

NANOTECHNOLOGIES ARE PLAYING AN INCREASING IMPORTANT ROLE AT THE FOREFRONT OF THE SIGNAL PROCESSING AS WELL AS IN SEVERAL STEPS OF THE DATA PROCESSING. HERE THE FOCUS IS THE MULTIFACETED APPLICATIONS IN SEVERAL FUNDAMENTAL AND APPLIED FIELDS, ESPECIALLY BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE

33 INTRODUCTORY VISION TO NANOTECHNOLOGY

Speaker: Fabio BELTRAM (SNS and NEST)

34 ADVANCES IN COMPUTER MODELING AT THE NANO-SCALES: MATERIALS & NANO-BIOTECH

Abstract
The nano-scale realm is located at a specific boundary of time/size and especially energy scales where the quantum effects cannot be neglected any longer, and at the same time determine the behavior of the system at macroscopic scales. This poses extremely hard challenges not only to experimentalists, but also to modelers, forced to adopt multi-scale approaches combining a large variety of methods and different resolution representation of the system under study. In the first part an overview of the techniques used will be given, focusing on the recent developments, where the deep neural networks and AI algorithm in general have taken fundamental roles, and giving perspectives towards the role of quantum computing. In the second part the focus will be moved to applications, illustrating specific examples both in the field of the materials science (design of intelligent materials) and in the nano-bio-tech materials (development of molecular constructs for theranostics).

SPEAKER:
Valentina Tozzini is Head of Research at the Istituto Nanoscienze (NANO) of the National Research Council, Unit of Lab NEST-SNS, Pisa. Graduated in Physics (UniPi and SNS), PhD in Physics of Matter (SNS) and Specialist in Medical Physics (UniPi), her expertise is on multi-scale computer modeling and simulations, continuously feeded through a wide network of international collaborations and research visits (e.g. UCSD, Nijmegen Univ). During the years, VT has developed and applied computational methods to studies equally distributed in the fields of advanced materials (e.g. graphene and other 2D materials, with recent applications in the field of green energy and in the neutrinos detection) and of nano-bio technologies (with recent applications to the development of viral or nucleic acids sensors), combining different methodologies (Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics simulations with advanced statistical analysis and neural-network based algorithms) and supported by several EU and national grants. VT dedicates also to editorial activity (chief editor of the modeling section of FMB, and editorial board of the Analysis magazine of scientific culture and politics) and to didactict activity (courses of Introduction to molecular biophysics, Structure of Matter and Numerical Methods for Physics, at the Physics dept UniPi).

Speaker: Valentina TOZZINI

10:50 COFFEE/TEA BREAK

35 ADVANCES IN COMPUTER MODELING AT THE NANO-SCALES: MATERIALS & NANO-BIOTECH (cont'd)

Part 2.

Speaker: Valentina TOZZINI (NEST-SNS-UNIPI)

36 FLASH THERAPY: A GROUNDBREAKING TECHNOLOGY FOR CANCER TREATMENT

Speaker: Fabio DI MARTINO (CISUP-Unit of Health Physics - University Hospital of Pisa)

Lunch time

Parallel session on Hands-on Lab

Coffee break

KEYNOTE 10: FUNDAMENTAL SCIENCES & CULTURAL HERITAGE

Conveners: Francesco TACCETTI (INFN-Firenze, LABEC-INFN), Lorenzo GIUNTINI (INFN-Firenze, LABEC-INFN)

Saturday 13 September

HIGH TECH and FUNDAMENTAL SCIENCE SYMPOSIUM: Part 1 on ENERGY & XXIst CENTURY

THIS SESSION IS DEDICATED TO THE PRESENTATIONS BY HIGH TECH EXPERTS FROM THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD DESCRIBING THEIR INVOLVEMENT on THE ENERGY in the XXIst CENTURY

37 ENERGY & THE XXI CENTURY: THE NEW DEVELOPMENTS ON NUCLEAR FISSION PLANTS

38  ENERGY & THE XXI CENTURY: NUCLEAR ENERGIES, TOWARDS HARNESSING NUCLEAR FUSION POWER

10:10 COFFEE/TEA BREAK

HIGH TECH and FUNDAMENTAL SCIENCE SYMPOSIUM: Part 2 on TOWARDS AN AI WORLD ?

39 1.- THE USA VIEWPOINT: THE FASST JOINT INDUSTRIAL & ACADEMIA RESEARCH DOE INITIATIVE

Speaker: Nhan TRAN (tbc) (FERMILAB)

40 2.- AI IN EUROPE, BOOST IT OR LOOSE IT, THE MISTRALexample case

Speaker: MISTRAL representative (TBA)

41 3.- WHAT ABOUT AI in CHINA?

Speaker: Firm representative (TBA) (DEEPSEEK or other(s) Firms)

CONCLUDING TALK FOR INFIERI2025 SCHOOL IN PISA AND THE RELATED HIGH TECHXFUNDAMENTAL SCIENCE SYMPOSIUM

SPEAKER: Amalia BALLARINO (TE DEPARTMENT, CERN, CH)

This talk will conclude both the 8th edition of the INFIERI School series and the 2nd related SYMPOSIUM on HIGH TECH x FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH.
Superconductivity, a continuously progressing research field (e.g. HTS), is one of the keywords of this cross-disciplinary school edition. It can be indeed seen as a kind of link between fundamental research topics, e.g. future accelerators, Heliophysics, and Nuclear Fusion, or entering the realm of nanotechnology and the qubit-world with superconducting quantum computers...

As of 2022: 5 Nobel Prizes in Physics for superconductivity related subjects:
- Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1913), "for his investigations on the properties of matter at low temperatures which led, inter alia, to the production of liquid helium".
- John Bardeen, Leon N. Cooper, and J. Robert Schrieffer (1972), "for their jointly developed theory of superconductivity, usually called the BCS-theory".
- Leo Esaki, Ivar Giaever, and Brian D. Josephson (1973), "for their experimental discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in semiconductors and superconductors, respectively" and "for his theoretical predictions of the properties of a supercurrent through a tunnel barrier, in particular those phenomena which are generally known as the Josephson effects".
- Georg Bednorz and K. Alex Müller (1987), "for their important break-through in the discovery of superconductivity in ceramic materials".
- Alexei A. Abrikosov, Vitaly L. Ginzburg, and Anthony J. Leggett (2003), "for pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids". (courtesy from Wikipedia).

Lunch time

POSTERS SESSION

THIS IS THE LAST BUT NOT THE LEAST SESSION OF THIS SCHOOL EDITION:

The school attendants will present their poster, i.e the summary of their ongoing research and/or technological activities to all their colleagues as well as a jury of experts.
The 3 elected as the best ones will get an award and visible recognition.

Note that:
1) the posters will be posted over the whole duration of the school in a dedicated place with visibility not only to the school attendants but also any other visitor in the place of exposition of the posters.
2) When registering to the school, the students will have to indicate the tittle of their poster and send as well a short abstract, as included in the registration form.