We are proud to honour Egle Tomasi-Gustafsson, an eminent physicist and a leading force sustaining the Varenna Conference series across the decades, by dedicating to her the 17th NRM edition.
Egle Tomasi-Gustafsson was born on July 4, 1956, in Desenzano del Garda, on the Garda lake in northern Italy.
After attending and graduating from the “Girolamo Bagatta” high school in Desenzano del Garda in 1975, Egle moved to Padova to pursue a degree in Physics at the University of Padova.
On November 8, 1979, she graduated with highest honors (110/110 cum laude), defending a thesis titled "Deep-inelastic heavy-ion reactions” under the supervision of Professor Renato Angelo Ricci. This was the first Italian study on heavy-ion deep-inelastic reactions in anticipation of their experimental research program at the Tandem accelerator of the Legnaro National Laboratory, then still under construction. Egle’s thesis work was also carried out in collaboration with the operational Tandem accelerator at Orsay.
In 1980, there was still an oscillation around the stable minimum that would be Saclay, when Egle moved to the Technical University of Munich, in Germany, where she continued to deepen her expertise in radioactivity measurement techniques, working in the group led by Professor Haruhiko Morinaga. Here, and in other contexts, Egle distinguished herself, not only for her brilliance in physics, but also for the strength and solidity in going her own way in a field still largely dominated by male researchers.
In 1981, Egle became a researcher at the Saclay Nuclear Research Center (CEA) in France. Over the next eight years, she participated in and led experiments investigating heavy-ion reactions at the Tandem and Cyclotron ALICE in Orsay, SARA in Grenoble, and GANIL in Cedex. She developed macroscopical models for the theoretical interpretation of these experiments.
These theoretical studies, combined with their experimental counterparts, represented the foundations of her PhD thesis titled “One-nucleon transfer reactions,” which she successfully defended on June 15, 1988, at the Paris-Sud University in Orsay under the supervision of Professor Michel Mermaz. It is a report on an experiment at GANIL that showed evidence for a change in the reaction mechanism of transfer reactions at the energy of 30 MeV per nucleon.
In 1988, Egle started focusing her research on nucleons at the Laboratoire National Saturne, where she led and served as spokesperson for experiments on proton and deuteron polarimetry.
In 1998, Egle continued her interest and research on nucleon reaction mechanisms, becoming a member of the GEP and T20 experiments at the Jefferson Laboratory, JLab, at Newport News, USA. Within these collaborations, her models and phenomenological descriptions of the microscopic mechanisms of scattering and annihilation reactions became significant reference points for interpreting experimental results.
From 2008 to 2014, Egle moved to the Orsay Nuclear Physics Institute (IPN), on leave of absence from CEA. There, as a leading researcher, Egle developed a scientific program for the planned PANDA experiment at the facility for antiproton and ion research in Darmstadt, focusing on the proton electromagnetic form factors. This program is a perfect interplay of theoretical models aimed at describing the microscopic origins of form factors and the experimental techniques necessary to extract data on these observables.
Between 2012 and 2022, Egle served as spokesperson for the ALPOM2 experiment at JINR’s Nuclotron in Dubna. She refined the polarimetry methods first explored at Laboratoire National Saturne in 1998, introducing novel concepts for deuteron-to-proton polarization transfer, to support experiments performed at Jefferson Lab.
In 2014, Egle returned to CEA, where she continued her research in hadron and nuclear physics with a series of brilliant and inspired intuitions which make the difference between a job and a fascination. A notable example is the discovery of “Periodic interference structures in the time-like proton form factor”, an astonishing oscillatory behavior highlighted and interpreted by Egle and Andrea Bianconi for the first time in 2015, even though it was in plain view for at least two years.
Since 1991, Egle has held leadership roles in scientific committees from different countries. She was, and still is, involved in organizing and advising several recurring international conferences and events. She leads the research program for bilateral agreements in hadron physics between JINR and the French National Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics (IN2P3).
Among her most significant roles, she served as the Chair of the JINR Programme Advisory Committee for Particle Physics from 2009 to 2012.
Egle also carried out a rich academic career, teaching at PhD schools and supervising diploma, master’s and PhD theses.
Egle’s retirement in 2024 is merely a mark on the calendar; as the great researcher Egle undoubtedly is, she possesses an unstoppable passion and a particular way of thinking to which, fortunately, is impossible to survive.
Attached here is a list of recent articles that cover the main topics in which Egle’s research gave crucial and original contributions.
Life besides pure thinking (there is no life besides Physics).
Egle devotes all herself to others, and hence what she does besides the pure physical research depends on who the others are. If, for instance, the others are colleagues who are visiting Saclay, she organizes a variety of recreational activities: lunches, dinners, tours, etc., to make their stay more than pleasant. If the others are family members or friends who need some kind of help, she helps them effectively, building things (I mean using screwdriver and hammer), cutting grass, painting walls, driving a tractor, steering a boat, …
Lucky are people who meet her.
[by Simone Pacetti]
