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Bocconi Postdoc Invited to High Profile Conference

, by Andrea Costa
Gianluigi Riva joins a selected group of young scientists that will attend a meeting with Nobel laureates later this year

Each year, the lakeside town of Lindau in southern Germany hosts the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting (LINO), a highly prestigious scientific forum where young scientists and Nobel laureates convene. Since normally some 30-40 Nobel laureates attend every year, it is considered the regular event with the largest number of Prize winners in the world, apart from the Prize ceremony itself in Stockholm.

Bocconi postdoctoral research fellow Gianluigi Riva is one of the 600 young scientists invited after a strict two-stage selection process to the 2024 edition, this year dedicated to physics as the focus rotates between the three Nobel Prize scientific categories of Physics, Chemistry and Physiology/Medicine. It is worth noting, though, that Gianluigi Riva's specialization is not physics but legal studies, which makes him one of very few legal scholars (and quite possibly the first) invited to a LINO meeting. This unusual circumstance is explained by the fact that during his year at MIT on a Fulbright-Schuman scholarship, he published a paper in the MIT Law Report on Computational Law in which he assessed quantum computing as the only potential technical solution to enable an AI system to perform logical-legal interpretation on causal (and not merely statistical) patterns, investigating the relationship between law and quantum mechanics.

Dr Riva, who is currently running a research project on neuroprivacy for the BAFFI research center, says that "participating in the Lindau Nobel Laureate meeting for Physics is an unexpected privilege for me. It is a definite recognition of the importance of interdisciplinarity, something that is not always easy to follow and to explain, and that is often only honored on paper. I believe that the rare instance of a jurist participating in a physics event, designed for physicists, is a sign that social sciences, and law in particular, are credited with a capacity for innovation which is usually thought to be an exclusive feature of the technical sciences. I am honored to be able to represent at LINO 24 Bocconi University, where I have been welcomed and integrated from the very beginning and where I have been given room to grow in an academic career that I hope will continue in this scientific community."

Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings, established in 1951, are a globally recognized forum for exchange between Nobel Laureates and young scientists. Their aim is "to inspire scientific generations and build sustainable networks of young scientists around the world" and "to activate the exchange of knowledge, ideas, and experience between and among Nobel Laureates and young scientists."