Michele Parrinello

Professor Parrinello is known for his many technical innovations in the field ofatomistic simulations and for a wealth of interdisciplinary applications rangingfrom materials science to chemistry and biology. Together with Roberto Car heintroduced ab-initio molecular dynamics, also known as the Car-Parrinello method, marking the beginning of a new era both in the area of electronic structure calculations and in molecular dynamics simulations. He is also known for the Parrinello-Rahman method, which allows crystalline phase transitionsto be studied by molecular dynamics. More recently he has introduced metadynamics for the study of rare events and the calculation of free energies. Forhis work he has been awarded many prizes and honorary degrees. He is amember of numerous academies and learned societies, including the German Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, the British Royal Societyand the Italian Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, which is the major academyin his home country Italy. Born in Messina in 1945, he got his degree from the University of Bologna and is currently professor of Computational Sciencesat Università della Svizzera italiana (Faculty of Informatics) and ETHZ in Switzerland.