Flaminia Giacomini was a Simons Emmy Noether Postdoctoral Fellow at Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. Now she is working to revive the field of quantum reference frames in her role at ETH Zurich.
Perimeter Institute alumni have gone on to a wide variety of roles after leaving the Institute. Inspired by the great intellectuals of the Italian Renaissance, Flaminia Giacomini sought a career that would allow her to explore fundamental questions. That quest has led her to a new field that combines quantum information, foundations and gravity. We reached out to Flaminia to learn more about her journey.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
What is your current role, and how are you trying to push boundaries in your field?
I work at ETH Zurich and supervise a PhD student and a postdoctoral researcher. I work in an unconventional research field addressing fundamental questions on the nature of space and time. This field recently emerged from the interactions between the quantum information/foundations and the quantum gravity communities. The approach to these questions is non-standard, and hence, although it has many connections with other research fields, it is not easy to convey its relevance and scope to non-specialists.
To push my field beyond its boundaries, I speak at many international events and give seminars to very diverse audiences to draw connections between experts in other fields. To do this, I had to learn how to effectively communicate my research by breaking field-specific language barriers. I also train and advise students and young researchers, who are increasingly interested in the field, to help them to enter the field and contribute to its research with a fresh perspective.
What brought you to where you are now?
Since I can remember, I was always passionate about fundamental questions. When I finished high school, I could not decide between studying philosophy or physics. In the end, I solved this dilemma by picking one of the fields in physics with the most philosophical inclinations. At school, I was inspired by the intellectuals of the Italian Renaissance, such as Pico della Mirandola and Leonardo Da Vinci, who were knowledgeable in almost everything, and spent their life thinking and studying. I wanted to be like them and, already as a student, I perceived the high specialization required in the job market as problematic.
I have always considered the academic path as a natural continuation, and I have never really questioned this choice. I was probably (and luckily!) quite romantic and naïve in this determination. The path so far has been tough but rewarding. I was lucky to meet exceptional mentors and colleagues who accompanied me in this journey and kept my hope alive. This got me closest to my dream as a child: to wander across different fields, think, and study the most fundamental topics. Without this curiosity and passion, I would have never had the determination and perseverance to get where I am now.
What are you passionate about?
I love culture in all its forms, and specifically I would not be complete without my “classical” background: the study of the ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean area, of the Latin and Ancient Greek language and literature, and of art history and philosophy. I have a passion for books, art exhibitions, and historical places. I love stories, real or invented, and travelling with my imagination to other places and other times. I am fascinated by how the different cultures come into contact and enrich each other, and the history of the Mediterranean populations is the perfect example of how fruitful this exchange can be. Humanistic and scientific cultures are both necessary to me, and each one helps me to think differently about the other.
In the past few years, I increasingly felt the desire to reconcile my academic life with a family. Securing a permanent position felt too uncertain, hence I could not wait for that. Last June, my son was born. Although it is very hard to balance the needs of a newborn with the demands of academia, accompanying him to discover the world is one of the best uses of my time I could possibly imagine!
How has your work impacted your industry and community?
My work on quantum reference frames (QRFs) has revived a research direction by posing new questions and providing a concrete formulation in which they could be answered. Recently, QRFs have developed into an independent research area, with an increasing number of researchers becoming interested in it, and my work has been the spark for this new interest. In addition, although QRFs have been studied in both quantum information and quantum gravity since 1967, research in these two disciplines has not been connected for a long time. My work has offered a useful formulation to establish a fruitful connection of topics and communities, and exchange tools to answer long-standing questions in a concrete way.
My work on table-top experiments to test the quantum nature of gravity has also been widely recognized. I am often asked to represent the research in this field in conferences, and I have won two prizes for my research on this topic: the first prize of the Gravity Research Foundation and the Blaumann prize.
How do you give back to your community?
Mentorship: I have supervised one PhD student and two postdoctoral researchers, six undergraduate students, and two additional PhD students in projects, and I adapt my supervision style to each personality. I teach a full Master’s course with 65 students registered. I also provide informal mentoring to other PhD students of the group through private discussions, and I am always happy to give career advice to students or help them to become engaged in the field.
I have written press-releases, given public talks, and participated in Perimeter Institute initiatives with high school students and teachers. I contributed to Perimeter Institute’s Inclusive Platform and the design of the PI Allyship Programme. I also advise journalists as an external expert on other researchers’ papers.
Whenever possible, I try to push for inclusive practices. This includes finding financial support at conferences for students without funding, promoting free babysitting at scientific events, and developing strategies to make younger researchers more active in scientific discussions.