Giovanni Lapenta

Belgium

1965-2024

Obituary:

With deep sadness, we say farewell to Prof. Dr. Ir. Giovanni Lapenta, our colleague, friend and for many among us, our mentor.
Gianni passed away on 28 May 2024, after a vigilant fight against cancer. He continued his passion for research, teaching and mentoring to the very last moments, and kept his ever-positive spirit when times were hard.

Giovanni Lapenta is a towering figure in kinetic plasma physics theory, simulations and applications, ranging from laboratory and space plasmas to fundamental physics aspects. He made available his theories and insights to the community via the publicly accessible codes iPIC3D and ECSIM. His recent interests encompassed the most modern machine learning techniques, while his expertise in state-of-the-art software and hardware for high performance computing is worldwide unique. His legacy will live, thanks to his countless breakthroughs in numerous individual but also many interdisciplinary science projects he initiated and led. He will be missed sorely.

Giovanni obtained the PhD from Politecnico di Torino (Italy) in 1993. After that, he spent more than 10 years at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He joined the Mathematics Department of KU Leuven in 2008 as professor in Space Weather, where he did research and built a large team due to his tremendous success in project applications.

Our sincere condolences to the family, friends, and acquaintances of Giovanni. Remember him in your thoughts.

Posted by Tom Van Doorsselaere