Prof. Luca Bindi

Luca Bindi is an Italian geologist. He holds the Chair of Mineralogy and Crystallography and is the head of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Florence. He is also a research associate at the Istituto di Geoscienze e Georisorse of the National Research Council (Italy) (CNR). He has received national and international scientific awards, including the President of the Republic Prize (2015) in the category of Physical, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences. Since 2019 he is a member of the National Academy of Lincei. He is the author of about 350 scientific papers published in international journals. Bindi is credited with the discovery of the first known natural quasicrystal, having identified a potential candidate from the mineral collection at the Natural History Museum of the University of Florence. The discovery ultimately showed that quasicrystals could spontaneously form in nature and remain stable for geological times.