Maria (Marilena) Longobardi

SCIENTIFIC COORDINATOR AND HEAD MANAGEMENT OFFICE

Maria (Marilena) Longobardi holds a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Salerno, Italy, in joint supervision with the University of California, Berkeley. Before her current role, Maria engaged in postdoctoral research at the Italian Institute of Technology and later held various positions as a researcher at the University of Geneva in the Department of Quantum Matters Physics from 2011 to 2021. Her research primarily focused on the electronic properties of low-dimensional systems, semiconductor nanostructures, and hybrid magnetic/superconductor systems. 

Maria is a scientist, a science communicator, and an expert in international scientific relations. In 2018, she worked as a commissioning editor at Springer for the launch of Nature Reviews Physics. She also held the Chief of International Relations position in China at the Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Science from 2019 to 2021. 

Since 2012, Maria has played several leadership roles within the American Physical Society (APS). Among them, she founded the Forum on Early Career Scientists (FECS) in 2016, growing it into one of the largest APS units. She also chaired the APS Committee for Informing the Public and the Topical Group on Data Science and is currently the Vice Chair of the APS Forum on Industrial and Applied Physics (FIAP).

Maria's contributions to science and technology have been widely recognized. In 2021, she was honored with the Inspiring Fifty award as one of Italy’s 50 most inspiring women in Tech and Science and was a nominee for Inspiring Fifty Europe in 2022. Additionally, she was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2022.