Two PhDone – Frank Thomas and Marco Pizza are Doctors!

It’s time to celebrate! Two students of our research team have recently defended their PhD theses.

The projects of Frank Thomas and Marco Pizza were both related to the Italian Ministerial Decree N. 1061/2021, concerning PhD programs on green and innovation topics. Such projects aim at strengthening the connection between academia and industry, and thus required the collaboration with an external company.

Frank collaborated with Energean under the supervision of Prof. Franz Livio and Dr. Norberto de Marchi. He worked on the topic of carbon capture and storage and the thesis title is “Geological Risk Assessment of a depleted Gas field for Carbon Sequestration with a focus on Induced Seismicity and Fault Reactivation”. Frank spent several months at the University of Alberta, Canada, working in the group of Prof. Rick Chalaturnyk.

Marco collaborated with Sogin spa under the supervision of Dr. Francesca Ferrario and Drs. Marzio Roncoroni and Michele Rosati. Marco’s thesis focused on “Earthquake hazard assessment for siting a high-risk facility: analysis of surface faulting and secondary seismoinduced environmental effects in the framework of the Italian Nuclear Waste Repository Emplacement”. Marco spent several months at the UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Querétaro, México), working in the group of Prof. Pierre Lacan.

In the past 3 years, Frank and Marco gained confidence and expertise on their respective research topics; the collaboration with the companies was fruitful and I dare to say it was mutually beneficial.

We wish nothing less than the best for Frank and Marco’s professional careers!