Tag: leadership

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Group facilitator

Selected as group facilitator for the “Management Matters” class organized and offered by the Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education at Stanford University. Management Matters is one of several VPGE workshops designed to help graduate students develop a range of skills needed in any professional environment. Offered in Winter 2016, Management Matters consists of three sessions focused on managing people: working with different communication styles; setting expectations; and giving and receiving feedback.

As a facilitator, I am responsible for a group of attendees during break-out sessions. These sessions include participatory activities involving challenging scenarios and developing strategies for effectively managing people at various levels of an organization.

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TEDxSSC

I am the founder and first licensee of TEDxSSC. I was the Chief Organizer of TEDxSSC 2014 and TEDxSSCLive 2015, and Co-chair & Executive Producer of TEDxSSC 2015. Each of these TEDx events had 250+ guests, 15+ speakers, 30+ organizing team members, $10k budget.

TED is a world-wide recognized brand ensuring high quality talks, speakers and ideas. In 2014 I was President of the SSC Alumni Association; along with the Student Association and the academic leaders, we decided to bring TED experience in our institution and community through TEDxSSC. In fact, many of the TEDx values match our institution values (interdisciplinarity, fostering new ideas, spreading innovation and creativity). TEDx mission is to communicate the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and, ultimately, the world. Our speakers were unheard local voices as well as known personalities.

In our first edition, we demonstrated how uncommon ideas and people (the exceptions) can make a real difference, change the world and set a new standard for our everyday life. We chose an extremely fascinating theme: “Dall’eccezione alla regola” (“From the exception to the standard”). The theme of the second edition was “Nonostante – idee, scelte e storie che sfidano ogni limite” (“Nevertheless – ideas, choices, and stories challenging all possible limits”). We presented ideas, technologies, stories that have emerged and succeeded despite limits of space and time, unfortunate contexts, intrinsic challenges.

 

More info at tedxssc.it. Follow us @TEDxSSC. Like us on Facebook.

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Moving technology to the market

Moving technology form the research lab to everyday life. This is my goal.
I was admitted in the Stanford iFarm program during Winter 2014. The Stanford Innovation Farm Teams Project seeks to improve success and overall efficiency of the commercialization of Stanford-owned inventions while providing an educational experience to iFarm Team participants. Participation in the iFarm Team Project provides individuals with a unique educational experience and opportunity to network in highly competitive industries.

Energy savings is the first and most important energy source. The interest of my team and mine is to find new solutions for energy awareness in residential buildings. We worked on a technology aimed to evaluate thermal building properties, predict energy consumption and claim carbon credits: A method and process to quantify energy savings and carbon offsets real­time for buildings. We explored the potential market segments, establishing for each one value propositions, partners, streams of revenue. We also designed a possible way to implement the technological platform associated with our patent.

Here is our final presentation for the program: Stanford OTL iFarm program - Team 4.

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Alumni Scuola Superiore di Catania

I strongly believe in the give-back idea. I hold my current position also because of my education. This is because I decided to get involved in my alma mater alumni association. This really is a rewarding experience in terms of positive feedbacks, satisfactions for all the organized events, and recognition from the current students.
I served as President of the SSC Alumni Association (Associazione Alumni Scuola Superiore di Catania) between 2011 and 2014. Before, I was member of the Executive Board and Vice-President (2009 – 2010).

Who we are

130+ alumni of a high-excellence education institution within the University of Catania (Scuola Superiore di Catania). The institution acceptance rate is very low (less than 10%). It provides a full scholarship for all the college years, including lodging in an historical campus (Villa San Saverio). Very high grade average and strict deadlines are required to maintain the scholarship. Attendance of complementary and high-level classes is required, along with a research thesis at the end of the scholarship (in addition to the standard university classes and master thesis). As alumni, we contribute to the education of the current students, create a network of diverse experiences and skills, represent the best output of our alma mater

What we do

We organize scientific seminars and conferences (once a week during the school year) and orientation activities. We mentor current students. We organize social events

My role and responsibilities

As a President, I ran and led the organization of all the events and activities; I interact with the academic and students representatives; I organized an yearly fund-raising campaign to support the Association activities; I interacted with all the alumni members to involve, motivate, and support their active participation; I was the administrator of the Association website, Facebook and LinkedIn groups, Twitter and YouTube accounts.

In the media

Workshop with the Speaker of the Italian House of Representative (on. Laura Boldrini, Presidente della Camera dei Deputati) – see in the available downloads and the recorded streaming:

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PhD in Physics

PhD in Physics, cum laude at University of Catania and MATIS Labs.
Thesis title: Growth, properties and processing of group IV semiconductor nanowires
Advisor: prof. Francesco Priolo
Date: 2010, February 15

Publication output

Book / Book chapter

Conference participation

  • E-MRS Fall Meeting 2010 – Warsaw (PL) September 13-17, 2010 Oral presentation, Symposium E
  • International School on “Materials for Renewable Energies” – Erice (TP, Italy) May 28 – June 2, 2010 Poster session
  • E-MRS 2009 – Strasbourg (F) June 8-12, 2009 Oral presentation, Symposium I
  • NODE International Summer School – Cortona (AR, Italy) July 1-5, 2008 Poster session
  • XV International Winter School on “New Developments in Solid State Physics” – Bad HofGastein (Salzburg, AT) February 18-22, 2008
  • XIII National School of Materials Science – Bressanone (Bz, Italy) September 30 – October 9, 2007 Poster session
  • XV International conference on “Ion Beam Modification of Materials” – Taormina (ME, Italy) September 18-22, 2006 Poster session

Leadership experience

  • Representative of Ph. D. Students in the Physics and Astronomy Department Council of the Catania University (2008 – 2009)
  • Webmaster of www.matis.imm.cnr.it (2006 – 2011)