Prof. Giorgio Bellettini is Honorary Professor of Physics at the University of Pisa, Guest Scientist at Fermi National Accelerator Lab (FERMILAB), and a founder and Honorary Board Member of ISSNAF.
In this video interview, he tells us about his lifelong commitment to international collaboration, to training students and to bringing Italy and its culture to the USA.
He credits the Italian style, the friendliness and open mindedness (the “Italian factor”) of the Italian physicists for his successful collaboration at the Fermilab.
He says his students are his children and indeed, as a devoted farther, he had to work hard to find money for them and, at some point, rented three apartments for hosting Italian students in Chicago for the famous summer internships at the Fermilab.
Prof. Bellettini tells us about the “Cultural Association of Italians at Fermilab” that he founded to bring the Italian culture to the USA.
Of course, as usual, we talked about ISSNAF, but this interview has also a far west twist: Giorgio remembers Robert Wilson, the Founding Director of Fermilab, who envisioned and developed open pastures with lakes, rivers, and barns around the labs. Researchers would ride horses and enjoy the wild nature between experiments in the accelerator underground.
(For those interested in learning about the life work in physics of Prof. Bellettini, we suggest watching the #weareISSNAF2021 conversation: The Italian Factor at Fermilab in conversation with Paul Grannis)