Federico Ferrini, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Pisa; his research has covered a few topics of theoretical astrophysics: formation of planetary systems and stars, interstellar medium, evolution of galaxies, gravitational waves and cosmology. He is author of more than 250 scientific papers. From 2011 to 2017 he was Director of the European Gravitational Observatory, EGO, where the Virgo interferometer is located. During his direction, Advanced Virgo was built, contributing with LIGO to the first detections of gravitational waves. Since March 2018 he has been appointed Director of the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory, CTAO, the unique global gamma-ray Observatory.