Nominated by the Italian Flame Committee and as confirmed by the recent IFRF Council Meeting, Dr Giancarlo Sorrentino has been appointed as IFRF’s new Vice President for Research.  We welcome Giancarlo to the IFRF ‘family’.

In terms of his background and credentials, Giancarlo is a Senior Researcher at CNR-STEMS in Napoli (Italy), working on advanced combustion technologies, CFD modelling, low-NOx industrial burners and the thermo-chemical conversion of carbon-free energy carriers within the context of the digitalisation of industrial systems. He undertook most of these activities in full partnership with industry, not just working alongside it.

In several international and national projects, he led a number of work packages on fuel-flexible combustion systems and numerical modelling, and he has been elected President of the Italian Section of the Combustion Institute and Vice-Chair of the COST Action CA22151 ‘CYPHER’ on digital twins for the decarbonisation of energy-intensive industries. The IFRF is already building strong links with this COST Action project, where we plan a CYPHER workshop on the first day of the  2027 IFRF Conference.

The contribution that Giancarlo would most like to bring to IFRF is to strengthen the network and collaborations between academia and industry in the combustion field and related areas. Giancarlo advises that the Combustion Institute and the IFRF approach the same physics from opposite ends, fundamental science and industrial practice, yet they cooperate far less than they could. Holding a governance role in both communities would let him build that bridge deliberately: joint workshops and TOTeM meetings, shared training for early-career researchers, and a reliable route for questions arising in industrial plants to reach the people best equipped to answer them.

I look forward to working with Giancarlo and wish him every success in his new role.