Valerio Lucarini is Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Leicester, UK.
Tell us about your background.
I was born in Ancona, Italy, in 1976. I studied physics at Scuola Normale Superiore and University of Pisa, and climate physics at MIT, before joining the University of Joensuu. I am currently Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Leicester, UK.
Which degree did you complete at UEF?
PhD (2003)
Which subjects did you study?
Physics
Which department, school or institute did you study in?
Department of Physics
What made you apply for admission to our university, in the field of your choice?
Personal contact with my future supervisor, Professor Kai-Erik Peiponen.
Is there a single best moment you remember from your time at UEF?
Walking towards the department, crossing a wooded area, and finding few giant porcini mushrooms (Tatti). And of course my Karonkka!
How has your career progressed since graduation?
My career has been meandering, both geographically and thematically. Starting from my condensed matter physics, I have progressively moved towards climate science, nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, and applied mathematics.
I have become full professor in Germany at age 34 and taken a chair in UK at age 40. My work has been widely appreciated, and I have received numerous awards and honours. My work has been cited in the motivations of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Most recently, I have been made a fellow of the American Physical Society, and I have been chosen as Lead Author for the Working Group of the IPCC's 7th Assessment Report. I am especially proud of the achievements of my former students and postdoc fellows.
How have you taken advantage of what you learned at the university in your professional life?
My research in Joensuu has given inspiration for a lot of my future work. I have generalised many of the results contained in my thesis in such a way that they could be applied to study problems in nonequilibrium statistical mechanics systems, including climate.
This has led to major advances in our understanding of the link between natural climatic variability and climate change, in climatic tipping points, and in the detection and attribution of climate change. Now I am working to adapt and extend these results to ecosystems and physics of life.
What is the best thing about your professional life right now?
The feeling that I am training and supervising early career scientists that will discover things that I cannot even imagine.
Anything else you would like to add?
I want to take the chance to express my gratitude to the (then) University of Joensuu and especially to my supervisor Kai-Erik Peiponen for believing in me and offering me a chance when I was going through extreme hardship.
