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Dr. Paola La Rocca is associate professor in Experimental Physics at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Catania.
She carries out research in Experimental Nuclear Physics. She is currently involved in researches carried out at CERN in the domain of ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions, joining the ALICE Collaboration at LHC (a large multipurpose detector for the study of heavy ion collisions at the highest available energies).
She is also collaborating with the EEE (Extreme Energy Event) Project, to develop an extended network of cosmic ray telescopes in the Italian schools, and more recently has been involved in activities concerning the application of the muon tomography tecnique.
She is author of several book chapters and about 600 scientific papers published in international physics journals.
EMPLOYMENT:
EDUCATION
GRANTS AND AWARDS
ORGANIZATION AND INSTITUTIONAL ACTIVITIES
Last Update: 11/10/2023
Prof. La Rocca has carried out research in experimental Physics since her master thesis in 2006. Her principal research interests concern high energy nuclear physics, cosmic rays and their applications. She is author of about 500 scientific papers published in international physics journals.
She is currently involved in researches carried out at CERN in the domain of ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions, joining the ALICE Collaboration at LHC (a large multipurpose detector for the study of heavy ion collisions at the highest available energies). Within such project, she has taken part to many experimental activities, for the construction, commissioning, data analysis and then for the upgrade phase of this large facility.
Within this research field, she acted as co-supervisor for many degree theses.
Since her bachelor degree, she has been introduced to the cosmic ray physics. In addition to many outreach experimental activities, devoted to the construction of low-cost cosmic ray detectors and realization of educational measurements, she is part of the Extreme Energy Events (EEE) collaboration since 2005. The EEE experiment aims at the construction and installation of a sparse array of MRPC cosmic ray telescopes in Italian schools. In this context she took part to the construction of the MRPCs at CERN and is currently in charge of the telescopes installed and operative in Sicily. During the last years she performed several simulations and analyses of the data collected by the ~50 EEE telescopes. These analyses have been the subject of several theses that she co-supervised at the University.
She was also involved in applications of the cosmic ray radiation. In particular she took part to the Project “Nuclear Contraband Detection Using Muon Tomography”, a projectfor the development of a muon scanning portal that employs the muon tomography technique for the inspection of container. More recently she has been involved in a project for muography of Etna Volcano.
OUTREACH ACTIVITY
Dr. La Rocca carries out outreach activities within the ALICE and EEE experiments.
A (not complete) list of activites carried out by Prof. La Rocca is here reported:
- I° Workshop University-schools on educational physics experiments (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 2006)
- Physics on the boat (Catania Port, 2008)
- Expobit 2008 – Exposition on Informatics, Communication and Technology (Le Ciminiere, Catania, 2008)
- Physics on the boat (Catania Port, 2009)
- Invited talk at the workshop “Scienziate tra passato e presente” in occasion of exhibition “Donne alla guida della più grande macchina mai costruita dall’uomo: LHC” (Palermo and Catania, 2010)
- XX Scientific Culture week (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 2010)
- XXI Scientific Culture week (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 2011)
- Talk at the international workshop “I Giovani e la Ricerca” (IISS S.Mottura Caltanissetta – 21 Marzo 2012)
- XXII Settimana della Cultura Scientifica (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 2012)
- Colloquium “La tomografia muonica: un potente mezzo di indagine per l’identificazione di materiale fissile di Contrabbando” (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 2012)
- XXIII Scientific Culture week (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 2013)
- Partecipation to a short movie produced by the University webTV about muon tomography (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 2014)
- XXIV SScientific Culture week (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 2014)
- XXV Scientific Culture week (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 2015)
- Public Conference on the EEE Project (Liceo Fermi, Paternò 2015)
- International Cosmic Day (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 2017)
- Seminar on the EEE Project (ITI Marconi, Catania, 2017)
- International Cosmic Day (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 2018)
- "Dal Polo Nord a Lampedusa" - public event at Liceo scientifico “E. Majorana” a Lampedusa (15 Marzo 2019)
- International Cosmic Day (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 2019)
- Seminar - International Day of Women and Girls in Science 2021(Department of Physics, University of Catania, 11 February 2021)
- Fisic@Catania, Radici e Prospettive - EPS Young minds (Department of Physics, University of Catania, 24 September 2021)
- 1st Meeting of the EEE Project after COVID shutdown (CCSEM, 17-19 November 2021)