Franco Bassani

Franco Bassani
Franco Bassani at his office
Born	(1929-10-29)October 29, 1929 Milan, Italy
Died	September 25, 2008(2008-09-25) (aged 78) Pisa, Italy
Residence	Italy
Nationality	Italian
Alma mater	University of Pavia
Scientific career
Fields	Physicist
Institutions	Scuola Normale Superiore

Giuseppe Franco Bassani (October 29, 1929, Milan – September 25, 2008, Pisa) was an Italian physicist.

Franco Bassani graduated cum laude in physics from the University of Pavia in November 1952. After two years as a researcher at the Italian National Research Council in Milan (with Professors Piero Caldirola and Fausto Fumi), he moved to the United States, where until 1956 he worked with Frederick Seitz at the University of Illinois. On his return to Italy he served as Adjunct Professor at the Department of Physics, University of Palermo (1956–1957) and Pavia (1957–1959). Five years as an Associate Physicist at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois marked a second American parentheses. Subsequently, he served as Professor of Theoretical Physics of the University of Messina (1964–1966) and Pisa (1966–1969), and professor of Solid State Physics at the University of Rome until 1980. In that period he was Invited Professor at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (1972–1973) and at the University of Illinois, Urbana (1979–1980). In 1980, he became professor of Solid State Physics at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, where he taught until 2004 and was Director from 1995 to 1999. In 2005, he was appointed Professor Emeritus.

From 1999 to 2007 he served as President of the Italian Society of Physics. He was also a Fellow of the British Institute of Physics since 1971, of the American Physical Society since 1982 and the European Physical Society in 2008. For the latter, from 1986 to 1992, he directed the Condensed Matter Division Board. He was a member of scientific committees and editorial offices of several international publications, including Solid State Communications (1972 to 1986) and Europhysics Letters (from 1986 to 1992). In 1990 he joined the Accademia dei Lincei.