'Alla Ricerca' Science Podcast

ICTP researchers Serafina Di Gioia and Nicola Seriani are among the scientists who have contributed to the new season of the podcast "Alla Ricerca", featuring researchers working in Trieste and in its region, Friuli Venezia Giulia, to discuss how science impacts our daily lives.

The podcast is produced jointly by several Trieste science institutes and the Italian national radio service RAI. Each episode is created by students enrolled in the Master of Science Communication “Franco Prattico” of the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA).

By talking with scientists working at the different research centres of Friuli Venezia Giulia, the students have searched for answers to scientific questions inspired by their everyday lives. The episodes touch upon a range of fields, from neuroscience to materials science, from artificial intelligence to robotics, and they help us learn more about how researchers work and how science is built, day by day.

Serafina Di Gioia, a lecturer in the ICTP-SISSA Master in High Performance Computing programme, has participated in the episode entitled “Chi è stato? La natura dei nessi causali” (Who did that? The nature of causal links), which looks at how researchers use Artificial Intelligence to recognise true causal links without being misled by appearances. The episode will be aired on 23 December 2025.

Nicola Seriani, a research scientist in ICTP’s Condensed Matter and Statistical Physics section, discusses how simulations can help us design more sustainable and effective materials in the episode entitled “I materiali del futuro sono già qui” (The materials of the future are already here), to come out on 13 January 2026.

New episodes will be released every Tuesday until 20 January as part of the radio programme Radar, on air from 11:20 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Rai Radio 1 FVG. They will all be available for streaming on: https://www.raiplaysound.it/programmi/allaricerca

‘Alla Ricerca’ is produced thanks to a collaboration between the local broadcast company RAI Friuli Venezia Giulia, and the science institutes Area Science Park, SISSA, and ICTP.