Yesterday afternoon the candidate Chiara di Paolo has successfully defended her Ph.D. Thesis in Astrophysics and Cosmology via a fully on-line session.
In particular, Chiara, her supervisor Prof. P. Salucci, the two external examiners Prof. F. Nesti and A. Burkert, the SISSA committee and the rest of the audience (including some other SISSA students) were all remotely connected via web from their own home using a communication software among those currently adopted by SISSA for ensuring the continuation of team research work.
This is the first time a Ph.D. thesis is defended fully online at SISSA and in Trieste and, as far as we know, in Italy. It might be the first thesis defended fully online due to the Covid19 Coronavirus emergency.
Andrea Lapi, coordinator of the Ph.D. in Astrophysics and Cosmology at SISSA, commented: "despite the complications induced by the global emergency, our group is firmly determined in pursuing the research and teaching activities at the best of our possibilities, by fully exploiting state-of-the-art remote connection technologies."
Congratulations to Dr. Di Paolo and to the Astrophysics and Cosmology group for their excellent work, made even more extraordinary by the current difficult circumstances.