Luca Bindi


Luca Bindi is an Italian geologist. He currently holds the Chair of Mineralogy and Crystallography in the Department of Earth Sciences in the University of Florence. He is also a research associate at the Istituto di Geoscienze e Georisorse of the National Research Council . He has received national and international scientific awards that include the President of the Republic Prize 2015 in the category of Physical, Mathematical and Natural Sciences in the National Academy of Lincei.
Bindi is credited with the co-discovery of the first known natural quasicrystal, having identified a potential candidate from the mineral collection at the Universite’ di Firenze.. The discovery ultimately showed that quasicrystals can form spontaneously in nature and remain stable for geological times.

Recognition

Awards for his research, include:
Two of his scientific works related to the discovery of the first natural quasicrystal, icosahedrite, were cited in Scientific Background on the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2011 – The Discovery of Quasicrystals of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. On 29 May 2018, the asteroid 92279 Bindiluca was named in his honor.

Research

Bindi has numerous international collaborations, especially with Princeton University, Harvard University, and the California Institute of Technology.
His research activity resulted in 300 scientific publications in international journals, mainly covering crystallographic structural studies of minerals characterized by incommensurate structures, superstructures, twinning, and integrating mineralogy with the most-advanced fields of crystallography. Significant among his research works are the crystal-chemical studies of major mineral phases for the Earth's mantle, and studies of potassium-rich clinopyroxene, which had broad international resonance.

Controversies

In July 2020, on the basis of an anonymous report, the Florence edition of national newspaper La Repubblica wrote that Professor Bindi copied portions of the text of his program as candidate for the position of Head of the Department of Earth Sciences of the University of Florence.
La Repubblica reports that Professor Bindi said that it was only a provisional, unofficial document, which would have been discussed with all the members of the department in case he was elected. Furthermore, Bindi added that there was nothing wrong with using portions of text of other people, as it was not a scientific paper but just an internal document.