Bio

Riccardo Zecchina obtained the master’s degree in Electronic Engineering from the Politecnico di Torino in 1989 and the PhD in theoretical Physics from the University of Torino in 1993.

He has been research scientist and head of the Statistical Physics Group at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste (Italy) between 1997 and 2007. In 2007 he moved as full professor to thePolitecnico di Torino University. He has been visiting scientist at Microsoft Research (Redmond and Boston) and visiting professor at the University of Orsay. Since 2017 he is full professor at the Bocconi University in Milan, at the Bocconi Insitute for Data Science.

The research interests of Riccardo Zecchina lie at the interface between statistical physics, computer science and information theory. His current research interests are focused on machine learning and out-of-equilibrium phenomena.

His past studies include combinatorial optimization, probabilistic and message-passing algorithms, statistical physics of complex systems (disordered systems), out-of-equilibrium dynamics, analysis of algorithms and interdisciplinary applications of statistical physics (learning algorithms, inverse problems in systems biology, source coding, game theoretical models).

International Awards:

- In 2016 Riccardo Zecchina received the Lars Onsager prize in Theoretical Statistical Physics by the American Physical Society (https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/onsager.cfm) with the citation: "For groundbreaking work applying spin glass ideas to ensembles of computational problems, yielding both new classes of efficient algorithms and new perspectives on phase transitions in their structure and complexity."

- Riccardo Zecchina is an Advanced grantee of the European Research Council (ERC) for the project “Optimization and inference algorithms from the theory of disordered systems” 2010-2015.