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19 November 2019

Physics laboratory opened in memory of Professor Alessandro De Vita

A new teaching laboratory dedicated to the memory of Professor Alessandro De Vita has been opened by the Department of Physics.

A group of physics researchers using lab equipment
Opening of the De Vita Lab, Department of Physics

A valued friend and colleague, Alessandro passed away suddenly on 2 October 2018. He had been Professor of Physics at King’s since 2010, and was the King’s College London Director and former Chair of the Thomas Young London Centre for Theory and Simulation of Materials, which he co-founded in 2006. In 2012 he co-founded the UK-JCMaxwell CECAM Node, coordinating EU-wide scientific events organised by the London universities and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

Alessandro’s wife and close friends attended the opening of the new lab on 6 November 2019, where a commemorative plaque and portrait were unveiled. Professor Michael Luck, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Natural & Mathematical Sciences, and Professor Peter Main, Head of the Department of Physics, spoke about Alessandro’s life and work in the Department, and attendees were given a tour and demonstration of the lab in action.

The lab is specially designed to accommodate second- and third-year undergraduate experiments, including project work. To support the department’s strengths in optics, the space includes a dedicated dark room for studying the behaviour of light.

This commemoration of Alessandro’s legacy in the department also complements the recent opening of a new suite of photonics and nanofabrication research laboratories.