Dr. Giancarlo C. Righini is a Senior Associate at Nello Carrara Institute of Applied Physics, National Research Council of Italy (IFAC CNR). Physicist, fellow of EOS, Optica, SIOF, SPIE, and meritorious member of the Italian Physical Society (SIF), he worked almost 40 years at CNR, in Florence, and in Rome, where he was the director of various scientific committees. After his retirement from CNR, he was director of the Enrico Fermi Centre in Rome, a public institution dealing with research in physics and the history of physics. He is the author or co-author of over 600 papers, mostly on photonic glasses, integrated optics, microresonators, and cosmic rays’ detection (ORCID ID: 0000-0002-6081-6971). He has been a co-editor of some books on photonics and an editor or guest editor of various journals; currently, he is editor-in-chief of Section D4 of Micromachines. He was co-founder and president of the Italian Society of Optics and Photonics (SIOF), vice president of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) and of the International Commission on Optics (ICO), secretary of the European Optical Society (EOS), and member of the Board of Directors of SPIE. He is honorary chair of the series of PRE (Photoluminescence in Rare Earths) biannial workshops. In 2021, he was awarded the Turner award of the International Commission on Glass. In 2024, SIOF presented him a career award.