Eugenio Coccia (San Benedetto del Tronto, Italy, 15 November 1956) is Full Professor of Physics since 2000 at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”. He is an experimental physicist with expertise in astroparticle physics, with a focus on gravitational wave experiments and interest on neutrinos and cosmic rays detectors. He is recognized for the development of ultracryogenic detectors of gravitational waves.

He graduated in Physics, cum laude, from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” in 1980 in the group of Edoardo Amaldi and Guido Pizzella; he has been Post-Doc and Fellow at CERN (1981-1985), research scientist (1985-1987) and associate professor (1988-1999) at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”. He spent long periods at CERN, at the INFN Frascati Laboratory and at INFN Gran Sasso Laboratory, and shorter periods at the University of Leiden, in the Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory.

He has directed the EXPLORER experiment at CERN (1998-2010) and leads the NAUTILUS experiment at the INFN Frascati Laboratories. He is a member of the large European laser interferometer gravitational-wave experiment VIRGO in Pisa.

At present, he is the Director of the INFN Center for Advanced Studies “Gran Sasso Science Institute”, Chair of the Gravitational Wave International Committee (GWIC) and member of the Council of the European Physical Society.

He has been the Director of the INFN Gran Sasso Laboratory (2003-2009), Chair of the INFN Scientific Committee on Astroparticle Physics (2002-2003) and President of the Italian Society of General Relativity and Gravitational Physics (2000-2004).

He has been member of international committees as ECFA (European Committee on Future Accelerators) and PANAGIC (Particle and Nuclear Astrophysics and Gravitation International Committee), and has been invited to be a member of international panels on the strategies of particle and astroparticle physics by CERN, the OECD Global Science Forum, the US National Academy of Sciences and the European Physical Society.

He has given lectures and seminars in Universities and research centers all over the world and is the author of about 230 scientific articles in international journals and editor of six books in the field of astroparticle physics.