Luca Del Zanna

Title:	Dr.
Nationality:	Italian
Born:	Firenze; July 16, 1968
Family:	Married, two daughters
Work address:	Università di Firenze Dipartimento di Astronomia e Scienza dello Spazio Largo E. Fermi 2, 50125 Firenze, Italy Phone: +39-055-2307703 Fax: +39-055-224193 E-mail: ldz@arcetri.astro.it URL: http://www.arcetri.astro.it/~ldz/

• January 2004 - present: Scientific editorial assistant for the international journal Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Arcetri astrophysical observatory - INAF.
• August 1998 - present: Postdoc at the University of Florence; research topics: solar, heliospheric and astrophysical plasmas - classical and relativistic MHD simulations - numerical methods.
• October 1997 - May 1998: Postdoc (junior visiting scientist) at the International Space Science Institute, Bern (CH); research topic: plumes in the fast solar wind.
• October 1994 - July 1997: Postgraduate student at the University of St. Andrews (UK); Research topic: MHD flows in coronal structures.
• November 1987 - July 1993: Undergraduate student at the University of Florence; Research topic: Analytical solutions for MHD stationary flows.

• July 1997: Ph.D. at the University of St. Andrews (UK); title of the thesis: MHD flows in the solar atmosphere (supervisor: Prof. A.W. Hood).
• July 1993: Laurea in Physics (110/110 e lode) at the University of Florence, Italy; title of the dissertation: Soluzioni simmetriche esatte delle equazioni della magnetoidrodinamica in regime stazionario (supervisor: Prof. C. Chiuderi).

• Simulations of astrophysical relativistic flows. Highly relativistic winds in plerions (in collaboration with Arcetri observatory - INAF).
• Solar and heliospheric plasma physics. Propagation of MHD waves in the solar wind. Simulations of the nonlinear stage of parametric decay as a key process for the observed turbulence evolution of Alfven waves in the fast solar wind.
• Development of numerical methods for classic and relativistic MHD.
• MHD models for stationary flows and wave propagation in solar coronal structures (prominences, plumes, loops).
• Analytical methods for finding exact solutions of stationary MHD equations with mass flow.
  

• Ultra-Relativistic Jets in Astrophysics, Banff (Canada), 11-15 July 2005: Relativistic MHD simulations of Pulsar Wind Nebulae: the jet-torus structure
• Invited participation to the KITP program Physics of Astrophysical Outflows and Accretion Disks, Santa Barbara (CA), 1 April - 15 May 2005
• IV Congresso Italiano di Fisica del Plasma, Firenze, 12-14 January 2004: Relativistic MHD simulations of Pulsar Wind Nebulae
• Adaptive Techniques in Computational Astrophysics and Biology, Catania, 12-14 November 2003: Relativistic MHD with central-type schemes - Axisymmetric simulations of Pulsar Wind Nebulae
• Virtual Astrophysical Jets, Dogliani (CN), 2-4 October 2003: Axisymmetric simulations of Pulsar Wind Nebulae with a new central-type scheme for relativistic MHD
• III Convegno sulla Fisica Solare Italiana, Vulcano, 30 September - 4 October 2002: Models for magnetic heating of the solar atmosphere
• Astrofisica Computazionale in Italia - Modelli e metodi di visualizzazione, Bologna, 4-5 July 2002: A third order shock-capturing code for relativistic MHD
• 26th EGS General Assembly, Nice, 25-30 March 2001: On the stability of large-amplitude Alfven waves
• 33rd COSPAR Scientific Assembly, 16-23 July 2000: Coronal heating through Alfven waves

• Seminars and organization help for Doctorate courses (Stellar Winds, 2002; Computational Fluid Dynamics, 2003; Parallel Programming, 2004).
• Tutorial activity for a Calculus first year course (1996, St. Andrews University).
• License to teach in secondary schools (Mathematics and Physics).
  
• Guide at the Arcetri observatory. Experience as an amateur astronomer. Scientific outreach.

• Message passing programming (MPI) on parallel supercomputers (Cray, IBM SP4, Beowulf Linux clusters).
• Fortran (F77, F90/95, HPF) and C programming languages.
• Unix/Linux, LaTeX, IDL, HTML, MS Office.