Premier Mario Draghi has lauded physicist Alessandra Buonanno, who on Monday won the Dirac medal for her work on gravitational waves - the first Italian woman to scoop the prestigious award.
"Prime minister Mario Draghi has learned with great satisfaction that the Dirac medal has been won by a female Italian researcher for the first time," Draghi's office said in a statement.
"Congratulations to Alessandra Buonanno, who has been honoured with one of the most prestigious international scientific awards for her work on gravitational waves," the statement said.
Buonanno's win "is an important sign of recognition which burnishes our country's reputation in scientific research," the statement added.
Buonanno is only the second woman to receive the Dirac medal, which the Trieste-based International Centre for Theoretical Physics awarded her and three other scientists. The medal honours "key work" in the field of gravitational waves detection, the ICTP stated.
In a tweet, Italy's foreign minister Luigi Di Maio earlier hailed Buonanno's Dirac medal win.
