Roberto Lalli
Roberto Lalli | |
|---|---|
| Residence | Cambridge, MA, United States |
| Known for | history of physics |
Roberto Lalli is an Italian historian of science specializing in the history of physics, particularly the development of relativity theory and the history of twentieth-century physics. He is an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (DIMEAS) at the Politecnico di Torino, and was formerly a research scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin.
Biography
Lalli was trained as a historian of modern physics. Before joining the Politecnico di Torino, he held a research appointment at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) in Berlin from 2013 to 2017, where he worked in Department I alongside scholars including Alexander Blum and Jürgen Renn. He earlier held a research position associated with Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States.
He is a member of several scholarly societies, including the History of Science Society and the Società Italiana di Storia della Scienza. He served as Secretary of the European Society for the History of Science from 2022 to 2024, and has been a member of the editorial board of the journal General Relativity and Gravitation since 2020.
Work
Lalli's research focuses on the history of physics, transnational history, science diplomacy, and the application of network analysis and digital humanities methods to the history of science. Much of his work has examined the history of general relativity and gravitation, including how the scientific community around the field was organized and institutionalized during the Cold War.
His research has also addressed the reception of relativity theory, the history of exoplanet research, multi-messenger astronomy, refereeing and peer-review practices, and European scientific cooperation. He has led or contributed to funded projects on European cooperation in nuclear fusion research (FusEUrope) and on science diplomacy and the negotiation of research data (NEWORLDatA, supported by the European Union).
Books
- Building the General Relativity and Gravitation Community During the Cold War, SpringerBriefs in History of Science and Technology, Cham: Springer, 2017. ISBN 978-3-319-54653-7.