Maria Allegrini is an Italian physicist, retired as a professor at the University of Pisa. [1] Her research has concerned nanophotonics and experimental condensed matter physics at the nanoscale with extremely low temperatures achieved by laser cooling.
Allegrini earned a laurea (at the time, the Italian equivalent of a master's degree) in 1969 from the University of Pisa. She continued her studies at the University of Reading in the UK, where she completed a Ph.D. in physics in 1973. [2]
She was a researcher for the Italian National Research Council (CNR) in its Pisa-based Istituto di Fisica Atomica e Molecolare from 1972 until 1988, when she became an associate professor of experimental physics at the University of Pisa. She took a full professorship at the University of Messina in 1994. She returned to the University of Pisa as a full professor in 2000, [2] and remained there until her retirement.
Allegrini was named as a Fellow of the Institute of Physics in the UK, in 2001. [2] She became a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2012, after a nomination from the APS Forum on International Physics, "for contributions to laser interactions with atoms and small molecules: energy pooling collisions, high resolution spectroscopy, laser cooling of diatomic molecules, and contributions to international physics through collaborations and professional service". [3]
Saint Petersburg State University in Russia gave her an honorary doctorate in 2004. [2]