Research


Current research interest

Humanity is facing a lot of challenges, summarized by UN's SDGs, and all of them need to be urgently addressed. Over the past few years, I came to consider climate change as the most pressing issue and I started considering how I could make an impact in this fight. Currently, I am interested in data science applications to optimize carbon sequestration from the atmosphere into soil.

Carbon Sequestration and the Contribution of the Agri-Food Sector

In the spring semester of the academic year 2022/2023 I will teach a short master module at the Collegio Ghislieri of the University of Pavia as part of the Master's Degree Programme in Agri-food sustainability launched in 2022.

Past academic research activities

Here is a short summary of my research activities between 2010 and 2021.

Searches for new physics with the ATLAS detector, 2010-2014

In my doctoral research I developed a data analysis strategy to discover signals from particles not included in our current understanding of fundamental particles interactions, the Standard Model. There are indeed many alternative theories proposing extensions of the Standard Model and predicting new particles ("exotic physics"); my analysis allowed to test many of these theories at the same time thanks to the choice of model-independent observables. This was a key achievement in a general-purpose experiment like ATLAS, where the vast amount of explorable "new physics" channels makes it impractical to focus on a single signal. I also contributed to the overall physics program of the ATLAS collaborations with detector calibration studies of the hadronic calorimeter, a critical element for all ATLAS results, including the discovery of the Higgs boson that led to the award of the Nobel Prize in Physics to François Englert and Peter Higgs in 2013. Yes, my name is on that paper, lost within the list of 3000 something authors, but it is there! The final dissertation titled "Probing new physics at the LHC: searches for heavy top-like quarks with the ATLAS experiment" was awarded the Premi Extraordinari de Doctorat by UAB.

(Most relevant) Publications
  • The ATLAS Collaboration, Search for pair production of a heavy quark decaying to a W boson and a b quark in the lepton+jets channel with the ATLAS detector, Physical Review Letters, 108 (2012) 261802
  • The ATLAS Collaboration, Observation of a new particle in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson with the ATLAS detector at the LHC, Physics Letters B, 716, 1 (2012)
  • A. Succurro (on behalf of The ATLAS Collaboration), The ATLAS Tile Hadronic Calorimeter performance in the LHC collision era, Elsevier Physics Procedia, 37:229--237 (2012)
  • The ATLAS Collaboration, A Particle Consistent with the Higgs Boson Observed with the ATLAS Detector at the Large Hadron Collider, Science, 338(6114):1576--1582 (2012)
  • The ATLAS Collaboration, Search for pair production of heavy top-like quarks decaying to a high-$p_T$ W boson and a b quark in the lepton plus jets final state at $\sqrt{s}$ = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector, Physics Letters B, 718, 1284 (2013)
  • A. Succurro (on behalf of The ATLAS Collaboration), Searches for heavy quarks at the ATLAS experiment, J. Phys.: Conf. Ser., 447 012047 (2013)
  • A. Succurro (on behalf of The ATLAS Collaboration), Search for pair-produced vector-like quarks with the ATLAS detector, EPJ Web of Conferences, 60, 20037 (2013)
  • A. Succurro (on behalf of The ATLAS Collaboration), Searches for fourth generation vector-like quarks with the ATLAS detector, PoS EPS-HEP2013, 315 (2013)
  • The ATLAS Collaboration, Search for production of vector-like quark pairs and of four top quarks in the lepton-plus-jets final state in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector, J. High Energ. Phys., 2015:105 (2015)

Understanding the dynamics of interactions between microbial communities, their host and the environment, 2014-2019

Developing research software and mathematical models of metabolic networks and plant-associated microbial communities. Working on data science approaches for omics (metabolomics and proteomics) data analysis and integration between experimental data and theoretical biology models; linear programming optimization modeling; stochastic modeling (Gillespie and genetic algorithms). Designing research on microalgae and microbial communities for biotechnological applications in the context of bioeconomy, agriculture (food security), nutrition

Publications
  • R. Jacoby, A. Succurro, S. Kopriva, Nitrogen Substrate Utilization in Three Rhizosphere Bacterial Strains Investigated Using Proteomics, Front. Microbiol. 11:784 (2020)
  • T. Pecht, A. C. Aschenbrenner, T. Ulas, A. Succurro, Modeling population heterogeneity, from microbial communities to immune response in cells, Cell. Mol. Life Sci. 77:415–432 (2020)
  • F. Tacchino, A. Succurro, O. Ebenhöh, D. Gerace, Optimal efficiency of the Q-cycle mechanism around physiological temperatures from an open quantum systems approach, Sci. Rep. 9, 16657 (2019)
  • A. Succurro et al., Orphan Crops at the Food for Future Conference, Planta 250(3) 1005-1010 (2019)
  • A. Succurro, D. Segrè, O. Ebenhöh, Emergent sub-population behavior uncovered with a community dynamic metabolic model of Escherichia coli diauxic growth, mSystems 4(1) e00230-18 (2019)
  • I. Dreyer, et al., Nutrient exchange in arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis from a thermodynamic point of view, New Phytol 222(2) 1043-1053 (2019)
  • S. Magni, A. Succurro, A. Skupin, O. Ebenhöh, Data-driven dynamical model indicates that the heat shock response in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is tailored to handle natural temperature variation, J R Soc Interface 15(142) (2018)
  • A. Succurro and O. Ebenhöh, Review and perspective on mathematical modeling of microbial ecosystems, Biochem. Soc. Trans. 46(2):403-412 (2018)
  • F.W. Moejes, A. Succurro, O. Popa, J. Maguire, O. Ebenhöh, Dynamics of the bacterial community associated with Phaeodactylum tricornutum cultures, Processes 5(4):77 (2017)
  • R. Jacoby, M. Peukert, A. Succurro, A. Koprivova, S. Kopriva, The role of soil microorganisms in plant mineral nutrition - current knowledge and future directions, Front. Plant Sci. 8:1617 (2017)
  • A. Succurro, F.W. Moejes, O. Ebenhöh, A diverse community to study communities: integration of experiments and mathematical models to study microbial consortia, J Bacteriol 199:e00865-16 (2017)
  • F.W. Moejes, A.B. Matuszynska, et al., A systems-wide understanding of photosynthetic acclimation in algae and higher plants, J Exp Bot 68(11):2667–2681 (2017)