Foto del docente

Federico Porcù

Associate Professor

Department of Physics and Astronomy "Augusto Righi"

Academic discipline: FIS/06 Physics of the Earth and of the Circumterrestrial Medium

Director of Second Cycle Degree in Science of Climate

Curriculum vitae

Federico Porcù is Associate Professor of Physics of the Earth System at the Department of Physics and Astronomy "Augusto Righi" of the University of Bologna (Italy) since 2020. He earned the Degree in Physics (theoretical Physics) in 1986 at the University of Bologna and, after the military service, granted 3-year fellowship at the Institute for the Study of High and Low Atmosphere of the Italian National Council of Research (FISBAT-CNR, now ISAC-CNR). Afterward he worked for 3 years as consultant for private companies on computer vision and pattern recognition in digital images, and then got a temporary researcher position at FISBAT-CNR from 1994 to 1998. From 1999 to May 2015 was enrolled as Assistant Professor in experimental Physics at the University of Ferrara (Italy).

At the University of Bologna and Ferrara, he taught/teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in general Physics and on subjects related to Atmospheric Physics (Remote Sensing, Cloud Physics, and Atmospheric Radiative Transfer, with laboratory), and supervised more than 45 theses (first and second level degrees) in Physics, Engineering and Meteorology. He has been tutor of 9 PhD theses in Physics. He also gives lectures in international schools and training courses in Italy and abroad on Cloud Physics and Remote Sensing themes.
He participated in PhD final examination and admission Boards, and in several Commissions to evaluate candidates to permanent or temporary position at Universities and Research Institutions. Prof. Porcù was member for two terms of the Board of the Department of Physics of the University of Ferrara, and participated in the Commission to assign internal funding in the same University. He was member of the Doctoral Council in Geophysics at the University of Bologna, and is member of the Commission for Research of the Department. He is/has been organizer of national and international meeting and workshops. He is/has been reviewer for several International Scientific Journals, for PRIN Projects (2009, 2010) and for the Italian Evaluation of the Quality of Research (VQR).

The research interest of Prof. Porcù ranges from clouds and precipitation microphysics to atmospheric remote sensing. In particular, he worked on the simulation of ice hydrometeors accretion process in clouds, comparing model output to natural aggregates, and studied the structure of liquid precipitation by disdrometric data at different elevations, assessing the break-up size variability with height. He developed multisensor satellite original algorithms to perform automatic cloud classification and precipitation estimation, and also worked on combining ground radar and satellite data for cloud studies. Application of the algorithms and procedures have been devoted to agrometeorology (i.e. soil erosion and leaf wetness), climatology of severe events, mitigation of floods and landslides, snow accumulation over Antarctica, and weather forecasting. He organized field campaigns aiming to collect data for experimental studies: disdrometers and radar have been used to analyze precipitation characteristics on the Tuscany Apennines (within PRIN 2005), on the city of Rome and its surroundings (within AEROCLOUDS), and on the Tibetan Plateau (within FP7 CEOP-AEGIS).

He took part in several national and international projects also with leading roles. The projects are
funded by: EU (FP4: MEFFE; FP5: EURAINSAT; FP6: FLASH; FP7: CEOP-AEGIS; H2020: iSCAPE, OPERNADUM; INTERREG: Riskaware, Riskmed), PRIN programmes (2003, 2005), FISR (AEROCLOUDS, 2006-2010), ASI (PROSA, 2008-2011), EUMETSAT (H-SAF, since 2007) e PNRA (since 2009). 

Latest news

At the moment no news are available.