Alessandro Bettini is Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Padua, Italy, where he has taught experimental, general, and particle physics for 40 years. He is current Vice-president of the Italian Physical Society and his past posts also include Director of the INFN National Gran Sasso Laboratory, Vice-president of the OECD Global Science Forum, and Director of the Canfranc Underground Laboratory in Spain. Most recently, Professor Bettini's scientific interests have focused on neutrino physics beyond the standard model and astroparticle phenomena. He is a member of the GERDA experiment, searching for neutrino-less double beta decay. Professor Bettini is the author of approximately 200 articles in international scientific journals as well as several books, including Introduction to Elementary Particle Physics (Cambridge University Press, 2008, 2nd edn).