Paola LA ROCCA

EMPLOYMENT:

• 11/2019 – today: Associate Professor in Experimental Physics at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Catania
• 12/2014 – 11/2019: Researcher in Experimental Physics at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Catania
• 11/2012 – 11/2014: Post-doc position at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Catania within the Project “Muon Portal”
• 11/2009 – 10/2012: Post-doc Grant at the Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche “E.Fermi” (in Rome) within the Project ”Extreme Energy Events”

EDUCATION

• 10/2006 – 10/2009: PhD in Physics at the University of Catania (Thesis: “Jet Physics in ALICE: construction and commissioning of the Electromagnetic Calorimeter”)
• 10/2004 – 10/2006: Master degree in Nuclear and Subnuclear Physics at the University of Catania, final grade 110/110 cum laude (Thesis: “Il progetto Extreme Energy Events: un network esteso per la rivelazione dei raggi cosmici”)
• 10/2001 – 09/2004: Bachelor degree in Physics at the University of Catania, final grade 110/110 cum laude (Thesis: “Uno studio degli effetti barometrici sul flusso dei raggi cosmici al livello del mare”)

GRANTS AND AWARDS

• 2018 – University grant (University of Catania “Piano per la ricerca – Linea d’intevento 2”)
• 2017 - FFABR grant (Ministry of Education, Universities and Research)
• 01/2014 – 01/2020: Italian National Scientific habilitation (ASN) as associated professor in Experimental Physics of fundamental interactions (02/A1)
• 10/2012  –  “Galileo Galilei Prize for young researchers” edition 2012,  Italian Rotary Club.
• 09/2005 –  Best contribution in the Didactic Section at the XCI National Congress of the Italian Physical Society.
• 05/2005 – INFN grant for neo-graduated students

ORGANIZATION AND INSTITUTIONAL ACTIVITIES

• 04/2024 - present: Vice-president of the Bachelor degree course in Physics
• 01/2024 - present: Member of the Group for the Quality Assurance of the PhD in Physics
• 06/2023 - present: Referent teacher for the Nuclear and Particle Physics curriculum in the PhD Program in Physics
• 11/2019 - present: Delegate of the Director of the Department of Physics and Astronomy “Ettore Majorana” for the Department Quality
• 01/2018 – present: INFN local responsible of the ALICE group in Catania
• Referee for several international scientific journals (NIM A, NIM B, Nature scientific reports, Optical Engineering, Annals of Nuclear Energy)
• Co-Editor for Europhysics Letters (EPL)
• Member of the organizing committee of some international workshops and conferences (Quark Matter 2017, Resonance Workshop at Catania 2014, WISH 2010)
• Outreach activity: within the EEE Project, she officially coordinates the participation of several hundreds of students to the International Cosmic Day organized by DESY
• Scientific associations: INFN, CERN, Centro Fermi, SIF, EPS

Last Update: 19/04/2024

Prof. La Rocca has carried out research in experimental Physics since her master thesis in 2006. Her principal research interests concern high energy nuclear physics, cosmic rays and their applications. She is author of about 500 scientific papers published in international physics journals.

• High energy nuclear physics

She is currently involved in researches carried out at CERN in the domain of ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions, joining the ALICE Collaboration at LHC (a large multipurpose detector for the study of heavy ion collisions at the highest available energies). Within such project, she has taken part to many experimental activities, for the construction, commissioning, data analysis and then for the upgrade phase of this large facility.

Within this research field, she acted as co-supervisor for many degree theses.

• Cosmic rays and applications

Since her bachelor degree, she has been introduced to the cosmic ray physics. In addition to many outreach experimental activities, devoted to the construction of low-cost cosmic ray detectors and realization of educational measurements, she is part of the Extreme Energy Events (EEE) collaboration since 2005. The EEE experiment aims at the construction and installation of a sparse array of MRPC cosmic ray telescopes in Italian schools. In this context she took part to the construction of the MRPCs at CERN and is currently in charge of the telescopes installed and operative in Sicily. During the last years she performed several simulations and analyses of the data collected by the ~50 EEE telescopes. These analyses have been the subject of several theses that she co-supervised at the University.

She was also involved in applications of the cosmic ray radiation. In particular she took part to the Project “Nuclear Contraband Detection Using Muon Tomography”, a projectfor the development of a muon scanning portal that employs the muon tomography technique for the inspection of container. More recently she has been involved in a project for muography of Etna Volcano.

OUTREACH ACTIVITY

Dr. La Rocca carries out outreach activities within the ALICE and EEE experiments.
A (not complete) list of activites carried out by Prof. La Rocca is here reported:

- I° Workshop University-schools on educational physics experiments (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 2006)
- Physics on the boat (Catania Port, 2008)
- Expobit 2008 – Exposition on Informatics, Communication and Technology (Le Ciminiere, Catania, 2008)
- Physics on the boat (Catania Port, 2009)
- Invited talk at the workshop “Scienziate tra passato e presente” in occasion of exhibition “Donne alla guida della più grande macchina mai costruita dall’uomo: LHC” (Palermo and Catania, 2010)
- XX Scientific Culture week (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 2010)
- XXI Scientific Culture week (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 2011)
- Talk at the international workshop “I Giovani e la Ricerca” (IISS S.Mottura Caltanissetta – 21 Marzo 2012)
- XXII Settimana della Cultura Scientifica (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 2012) 
- Colloquium “La tomografia muonica: un potente mezzo di indagine per l’identificazione di materiale fissile di Contrabbando” (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 2012)
- XXIII Scientific Culture week (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 2013)  
- Partecipation to a short movie produced by the University webTV about muon tomography (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 2014)
- XXIV SScientific Culture week (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 2014)
- XXV Scientific Culture week (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 2015)
- Public Conference on the EEE Project (Liceo Fermi, Paternò 2015)
- International Cosmic Day (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 2017)
- Seminar on the EEE Project (ITI Marconi, Catania, 2017)
- International Cosmic Day (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 2018)
- "Dal Polo Nord a Lampedusa" - public event at Liceo scientifico “E. Majorana” a Lampedusa (15 Marzo 2019)
- International Cosmic Day (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 2019)
- Seminar - International Day of Women and Girls in Science 2021(Department of Physics, University of Catania, 11 February 2021)
- Fisic@Catania, Radici e Prospettive - EPS Young minds (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 24 September 2021)
- 1st Meeting of the EEE Project after COVID shutdown (CCSEM, 17-19 November 2021)