Franco Alberto Zunino Sommariva

Franco Zunino is a scientist and Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) fellow at the Physical Chemistry of Building Materials (PCBM) at ETH Zürich group since 2022. He obtained his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the école Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in 2020, within the group of Prof. Karen Scrivener. His doctoral thesis was recognized in 2021 with the Nanocem 2020 prize, awarded to the best thesis in the field of cement and concrete science worldwide by a panel of international experts. During the same year, one of his papers was distinguished with the Outstanding Paper 2020 award by the board of editors of the journal Materials and Structures. In 2022, he received the Wason Medal, awarded by the American Concrete Institute (ACI) to the most meritorious paper published in 2021 in their journals. In 2023, he was recognised by RILEM with the Colonnetti Medal for his outstanding contributions to the fields of construction materials and structures.His research revolves around the development of novel, environmental friendly cementitious materials with a fundamental scientific approach. Among his interests are advanced, time-​resolved characterization methods of cement hydration, interaction of surfaces with polymers in cement paste, microstructural analysis through electron microscopy and optimization of the production process of clinker and supplementary cementitious materials. In 2022, he received an Ambizione fellowship by the SNSF to develop a new generation of low-​carbon, high-​performance concrete formulations (namely ultra-​green concrete). Within this fellowship, he joined the PCBM group to develop and formulate tailor-​made admixtures for these materials.