The National Institute of Nuclear Physics intends to remember with this Award the figure of Claudio Villi (1922-1996), a distinguished physicist, called to fill the first Italian chair of Nuclear Physics in Padua in 1961. He was, together with Rostagni, creator and promoter the creation of the National Laboratories of Legnaro, promoting their international competitiveness with the installation of the Tandem accelerator, the first heavy ion machine made in Italy; among the many scientific contributions, we recall the "Clementel and Villi model", at the end of a series of works on the electromagnetic interaction of high-energy electrons with protons; he was President of the INFN from 1970 to 1975; during his presidency, the Institute's structural and organizational model was established, which still characterizes it in its particular lines.
The "Claudio Villi" 2016 Award for the best doctoral thesis in nuclear physics was awarded by CSN3 to Simone Ceruti of the University and INFN Section of Milan, for the thesis entitled: "Test of the isospin symmetry via Giant Dipole Resonance decay range".
The "Claudio Villi" 2015 Award for the best doctoral thesis in nuclear physics was awarded by CSN3 to Andrea Festanti, of the INFN section of Padua, for the thesis: "Measurement of the D0 meson production in Pb-Pb and p-Pb collisions with the ALICE experiment at the LHC".
INFN CSN3 awarded the Villi prize for the best doctoral thesis in nuclear physics in 2015 to Caterina Michelagnoli, author of a thesis titled: "The lifetime of the 6.79 MeV state in 15O as a challenge for nuclear astrophysics and gamma ray spectroscopy: a new DSAM measurement with the AGATA demonstrator array ", carried out in collaboration with the INFN section and the University of Padua and with the National Laboratories of Legnaro.