Federico Marinacci

FEDERICO MARINACCI

Address: Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Bologna,
via Gobetti 93/2, I-40129, Bologna, Italia
E-mail: federico.marinacci2@unibo.it
Web-page: http://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/federico.marinacci2/en

CURRENT AND PREVIOUS POSITIONS

• from 2022: Associate Professor at the University of Bologna, Department of Physics and Astronomy "Augusto Righi"
  
• 2019 - 2021: Senior assistant professor at the University of Bologna, Department of Physics and Astronomy "Augusto Righi" (Rita Levi Montalcini Fellowship)
  
• April 2018 - December 2018: Postdoctoral Fellow, ITC, Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge (MA), USA.
• October 2014 - March 2018 : Postdoctoral Associate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (MA), USA.
• May 2011 - September 2014: Postdoc at the Heidelberg institute for Theoretical Studies, Heidelberg, Germany.
  

EDUCATION

• PhD in Astronomy at the University of Bologna (2011);
• Master degree in Astrophysics and Cosmology at the University of Bologna (2007, cum laude);
• Bachelor degree in Astronomy at the University of Bologna (2005, cum laude).
  

RESEARCH
Main scientific interests

Theoretical astrophysics and in particular galaxy formation and evolution, magnetic fields in the Universe, gas dynamics and circulation in galaxies, computational astrophysics.

Publications
Author of 137 refereed publications in international journals (6429 citations, h-index 43). An updated publication list can be found at the following link.

• "Globular clusters and environmental effects in galaxy clusters", HST Cycle 24 AR Proposal (PI Laura Sales, University of California Riverside), 01/10/2016-01/11/2019. Grant amount 144.644 $.
• "The role of gas circulation in galaxy evolution". The project is funded by the program RITA LEVI MONTALCINI of the Italian MIUR, 14/01/2019-13/01/2022. Grant amount 213.673,66 Euro.
  

Awarded high-performance computing projects

Successful computing proposals can be also considered as actual research funding. The current rate is about 35$ per 1000 cpu hours (source XSEDE).

• CO-PI of the project "Galactic Fountains" , INAF-CINECA standard project: 20.000 CPUh on HPC CINECA system BCX, 2010;
• PI of the project "Galactic Fountains and Gas Accretion", ISCRA Class-C project: 20.000 CPUh on  HPC CINECA system SP6, 2010;
• CO-PI of the project "Local Dwarf Galaxies Stripping". ISCRA Class-C project: 20.000 CPUh on HPC CINECA system Fermi. PI: Andrea Gatto, co-supervised master's student, 2011;
• CO-PI of the project "Gas stripping in Local Dwarf Galaxies". ISCRA Class-C project: 20.000 CPUh on HPC CINECA system Fermi. PI: Andrea Gatto, co-supervised master's student, 2011;
• CO-PI of the project "The Lucidus/Illustris Project: Cosmological simulations of galaxy formation on a moving mesh". PRACE tier 0 project: 20.000.000 CPUh on HPC system Curie (France), 2012;
• CO-PI of the project "The Auriga Project: Formation of a disk galaxy at ultra-high resolution". GSC large-scale project: 45.000.000 oCPUh on HPC LRZ system SuperMUC (Germany), 2013;
• CO-PI of the project "Illustris TNG: The Next Generation Cosmological Hydrodynamic Simulations". XSEDE proposal: 5.000.000 CPUh on HPC XSEDE system Stampede (USA), 2014;
• PI of the project "Simulating the ISM and stellar feedback in Milky-Way-type galaxies". XSEDE start-up allocation: 50.000 CPUh on HPC XSEDE system Stampede (USA), 2014;
• CO-PI of the project "Corona cooling and gas accretion in disc galaxies". ISCRA Class-C project: 1.000.000 CPUh on  HPC CINECA system Fermi. PI: Lucia Armillotta, co-supervised PhD student, 2014;
• CO-PI of the project "The Illustris++ Project: predicting galaxy formation in a representative volume of the Universe". Gauss-Centre Tier-0 Proposal: 92.000.000 CPUh on HPC HLRS system Hornet (Germania), 2015/2016;
• CO-PI of the project "Impact of galactic winds on the circumgalactic medium". ISCRA Class-C project: 1.000.000 CPUh on HPC CINECA system Fermi. PI: Lucia Armillotta, co-supervised PhD student, 2015;
• PI of the project "Cosmological simulations of disk galaxies: modeling the ISM and stellar feedback in Milky-Way halos". XSEDE proposal: 734.000 CPUh on HPC XSEDE system Stampede (USA), 2015;
• CO-PI of the project "Dwarf Galaxies as Cosmological Laboratories of Galaxy Formation". XSEDE proposal: 740.082 CPUh on HPC system Stampede (USA), 2016;
• CO-PI of the project "The HESTIA runs (High-res Environmental Simulations of The Immediate Area)". Standard LRZ proposal: 30.000.000 CPUh on HPC LRZ system SuperMUC (Germany), 2017.
• PI of the project "How dwarf galaxies lose their gas by moving through the halo of the Milky Way". ISCRA Class-C project: 130.000 CPUh on HPC CINECA system GALILEO, 2020;
  

Periods in international institutions and other research experience

• VISITING SCIENTIST at Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (S. Barbara, USA) to participate at the scientific program "Gravity's Loyal Opposition: The Physics of Star Formation Feedback".
• "Hydrodynamical simulations of cold gas clouds in galactic haloes" at the Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics (Oxford, UK) under the suprvision of Prof. James Binney, Marco Polo scholarship of the University of Bologna
• PANEL MEMBER for two grant evaluations panels of the National Science Foundation, USA.

Conferences and workshops

Posters

• The mode of gas accretion on to star-forming galaxies at "Hunting for the Dark: The Hidden Side of Galaxy Formation", Qawra, Malta, 2009.
• Stellar Feedback Models in AREPO at "The Physics of Star Formation and its Role in Galaxy Evolution", Trieste, Italy, 2012.

Contributed talks

• Accretion of the Hot Corona in Milky-Way Type Galaxies at "Disk Galaxy Formation in a Cosmological Context", Heidelberg, Germany, 2012.
• Disc-corona interaction in Milky-Way Type Galaxies at "Whereabouts, Physical State and Metallicity of the Missing Baryons in the Local Universe", Cervia-Milano Marittima, Italy, (2012).
• The formation of disc galaxies in moving-mesh cosmological simulations at "The Physical Link between Galaxies and their Halos", Garching bei München, Germany, 2013.
• The formation of disc galaxies in moving-mesh cosmological simulations at "Mind the Gap: from microphysics to large-scale structure in the Universe ", Cambridge, UK, 2013.
• The formation of disc galaxies in moving-mesh cosmological simulations at "Exascale Computing in Astrophysics", Ascona, Switzerland, 2013.
• Feedback processes in galaxy formation simulations at "The galaxy ecosystem. Flow of baryons through galaxies", Garching bei München, Germany, 2017.

Invited Talks

• The importance of galactic fountain in galaxy evolution at "The Periphery of Disks", Sydney, Australia, 2014.
• Environment effects with the Illustris galaxy population at "In the Footsteps of Galaxies: Tracing the Evolution of Environmental Effects", Soverato, Italy, 2015.
• Future Improvements on Simulations at "MITP Scientifc Program: Dark Matter in the Milky Way", Mainz, Germany. 2016.
• ΛCDM cosmology below cluster scales at "Xth International Conference on the Interconnection between Particle Physics and Cosmology (PPC 2016)", São Paulo, Brasil, 2016.
• Feedback processes in galaxy formation simulations at "Crossing the Rubicon: The fate of gas flows in galaxies", Santarcangelo di Romagna, Italy, 2016.

Conference organization

• Organization (together with  F. Iocco, S. Galli e C. Dvorkin) of the scientific program "Tensions in the ΛCDM paradigm " at the Mainz Institute for Theoretical Physics, Mainz, Germany, 2018. One of the invited speakers of the workshop was the 2011 Nobel Prize for Physics laureate Prof. Adam Riess.
  

Seminars

Invited seminars

• Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia/Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna, Bologna, Italy, 2013;
• Osservatorio Astronomico e Università di Trieste, Trieste, Italy, 2013;
• Joint Seminar of the Institute of Astro- and Particle Physics, Innsbruck, Austria, 2014;
• Center for Astrophysics, Lunch Talk Series, Cambridge, USA, 2014;
• Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy, 2015;
• Dipartimento di Astronomia, Univeristy of California, Riverside, USA, 2016;
• Dark Cosmology Centre, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2016;
• Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Bologna , Bologna, Italy, 2016;
• Dipartimento di Fisica, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, USA, 2017;
• Center for Astrophysics, Lunch Talk Series, Cambridge, USA, 2017;
• Department of Physics, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, USA, 2017;
• Dipartimento di Fisica, University of Bath, Bath, UK, 2017.

Outreach seminars

• "The Illustris simulation: evolving the Universe on a supercomputer" for the Independent Activity Period of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA, 2015.
• "Simulare l'Universo",associazione astrofili Mizar, Umbertide (PG), Italy, 2016.
• "Misurare l'Universo: la scala delle distanze cosmiche", associazione astrofili Mizar, Umbertide (PG), Italy, 2017.
• "Universi virtuali: capire la formazione delle galassie", associazione astrofili Paolo Maffei, Perugia, Italy, 2019. The seminar has been advertised on the regional news "TGR Umbria".
  

Other seminars

• Galaxy Evolution Discussion Group, Oxford, UK, 2009;
• PhD final presentation, Dipartimento di Astronomia, Università di Bologna, Bologna,
  Italy, 2011;
• MPIA Theory Meeting, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany, 2011;
  HITS Scientific Seminar Series, Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies, Heidelberg,
  Germany, 2012;
• SFB seminars, Astronomisches Rechen-Institute, Heidelberg, Germany, 2013;
• MPIA Theory Meeting, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany, 2013;
• HITS Scientific Seminar Series, Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies, Heidelberg,
  Germany, 2014;
• Orientation session for last year high school students, Liceo Scientifico G. Alessi (Perugia) and L. da Vinci (Umbertide, PG). Meeting with students to illustrate the opportunities of a career in astrophysical research and short presentation of some key results of cosmological simulations of galaxy formation, 2016.
• Orientation session for last year high school students, Liceo Scientifico L. da Vinci (Umbertide, PG). Meeting with students to illustrate the opportunities of a career in astrophysical research and short presentation of some key results of cosmological simulations of galaxy formation, 2017.
• MKI Postdoctoral Symposium, Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Cambridge,
  USA, 2017;
• Astrophysics talk, Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy,
  2019.
  

Colloquia

• Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, USA, 2017;
• Department of Astronomy, Università del Maryland, College Park, USA, 2017;
• Department of Physics, ETH, Zurigo, Switzerland, 2019;
• Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, Groningen, The Netherlands, 2019.
  

TEACHING

Courses

• Teaching assistant for the course del corso Elementi di Informatica (Elements of computer science), Department of Astronomy, University of Bologna (academic year 2008/2009 e 2009/2010). Laboratory assistance and examinations.
• Introductory lecture on hydrodynamic codes, Department of Astronomy, University of Bologna, 2012. A two-hour lecture covering the basics of hydro codes for the course Dinamica del gas nelle galassie (Gas dynamics in galaxies).
• Lectures on cosmological structure formation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA, 2017. A series of three lectures covering the basics of cosmological structure formation for the graduate course Astrophysics II.

 Student supervision

PhD thesis

• Co-supervisor -PhD thesis of Lucia Armillotta "The origin and fate of the multiphase
  circumgalactic medium of galaxies via high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations”, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Bologna, 2016. Now postdoc at the Mount Stromlo Observatory, Canberra, AU. From 2020 postdoc at Princeton University, USA.
• Co-supervisor - PhD thesis of Cristina Popa "Simulating the Cosmic Gas: From Globular Clusters to the Most Massive Haloes", Department of Physics, Harvard University, 2016. Now Quantitative Research Associate at Two Sigma Investments, New York, USA.
• Co-supervisor - PhD thesis of Fernando Becerra "Formation of Supermassive Black Hole Seeds in the FirstGalaxies", Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Harvard University, 2018.
  

Master thesis

• Co-supervisor - Master's thesis of Andrea Gatto "Revealing the corona of the Milky Way via ram-pressure stripping of dwarf satellites" (graduated cum laude), Department of Astronomy,
  University of Bologna, 2012.
• Co-supervisor -Master's thesis of Giuseppe Melfi "Simulazioni idrodinamiche di nubi di gas freddo della Via Lattea", Department of Astronomy, University of Bologna, 2012.
• Co-supervisor - Master's thesis of Lucia Armillotta "Studio del raffreddamento della corona calda di una galassia a spirale: simulazioni idrodinamiche dell'interazione tra nubi del disco e la corona", Department of Astronomy, University of Bologna, 2013.
• Supervisor - Master's thesis of Daniele Giarrusso "Properties of the galactic-scale gas circulation generated by stellar feedback", Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Bologna, 2020.
• Supervisor - Master's thesis of Saverio Francesco Colla "Identification and analysis of super-bubbles candidates in Milky Way-like galaxy simulations", Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Bologna, 2020.
• Supervisor - Master's thesis of Filippo Barbani "Hydrodynamical N-body simulations of galactic coronae in Milky Way-like galaxies", Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Bologna, 2021.
• Supervisor - Master's thesis of Mattia Pacicco "High-resolution simulations of supernova remnants and superbubbles feedback", Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Bologna, 2022.

Bachelor thesis

• Supervisor - Bachelor thesis of Alessandro Stenghel "Simulazioni numeriche di onde di Alfvén in presenza di resistività", Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Bologna, 2020.

Summer students

• Supervisor of the summer student Sruthi Narayanan in the framework of the MIT UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program) program, 2016. During the internship Sruthi developed her Bachelor degree project "Effect of Magnetic Seed Fields on Lyman Alpha Emission from Distant Quasars". Now PhD student at the Harvard University, USA.
• Supervisor of the summer student Avikar Periwal in the framework of the Caltech SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships) program, 2016. Now PhD student in Physics at Stanford University, USA.