Dr Michelangelo Mangano, senior theoretical physicist at CERN, the European Centre for Particle Physics

Dr Michelangelo Mangano is senior theoretical physicist at CERN, the European Centre for Particle Physics. He obtained his PhD from Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa, Italy), with work on the phenomenology of Superstring theories. He held research positions in the theoretical physics Departments of Princeton University, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Batavia, IL), and Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (Pisa), before joining CERN in 1995. He is co-author of over 350 scientific publications, both in theoretical and in experimental particle physics. His main area of expertise is the dynamics of high-energy particle collisions, and their use for the understanding of elementary particles and for the search and study of the fundamental interactions. As a participant in the CDF experiment at the Fermilab's Tevatron accelerator, he was a member of the team that discovered the top quark in 1994. He is constantly engaged in outreach activities, and in 1998 created CERN's High School Teachers' programme, which through the years hosted and trained hundreds of teachers from all over the world.

He has been visiting scholar or lecturer in over 20 Universities and laboratories worldwide, and a member of the Scientific Programme Committee of over 50 International conferences and workshops, as well as member of the review committees for several Institutions and Laboratories, and of the Editorial board of various international scientific journals.