An innovator with impact
Rotary’s latest alumni award honoree pursues scientific and societal progress
Alone in a lab one night about 30 years ago, Gaetano Scamarcio experienced something every scientist yearns for. After months of failed experiments, minuscule adjustments, and stubborn faith, he finally made a breakthrough: His newly designed laser actually worked.
“I saw the signal from the measurement instruments skyrocket off the scale,” recalls Scamarcio, the recipient of the 2023-24 Rotary Alumni Global Service Award. “Initially, due to fatigue, I thought it was caused by interference. But then I realized that — Bingo! — my superlattice quantum cascade microlaser, which I had designed and longed for so many times, was finally working. It was an indescribable joy.”
Scamarcio’s bingo moment was all the more exciting for where it took place: Nokia Bell Labs, the world-renowned innovation hub headquartered in Murray Hill, New Jersey. In the century since Bell Labs (as it was formerly known) was founded, it contributed to the development of the transistor, the laser, the solar cell, and the Unix computer operating system.
Gaetano Scamarcio is a member of the Rotary Club of Bari, Italy, the same club that sponsored his Ambassadorial Scholarship.
Image credit: Camillo Pasquarelli
For Scamarcio, the place was close to paradise. “I had been traveling and working in Germany and Italy, but that atmosphere was unique,” he says. “Everybody was working and playing and dreaming simultaneously.”
Scamarcio had long yearned to study at Nokia Bell Labs. He got his PhD in experimental physics from the University of Bari Aldo Moro in Italy, focusing on lasers and semiconductors. The chance to pursue his research at the celebrated facility came when a fellow scientist, who would become his mentor there, told him about The Rotary Foundation’s Ambassadorial Scholarship program. He applied for and won a scholarship, and he was soon on his way to New Jersey.
“This opportunity,” he says, “was akin to a soccer player being called up to the national team, opening a world of possibilities for me and my family.”
Those possibilities ultimately went beyond the scientific realm. Ten years after his laser breakthrough, Scamarcio was invited to join the Rotary Club of Bari, in Italy’s Apulia region, the same club that had sponsored his scholarship. Discovering Rotary’s sense of shared purpose sparked a commitment to service that fires him to this day.
“Engagement with Rotary fosters positive transformations not only for our neighbors, but also for ourselves,” he says. “The five core values of Rotary — integrity, diversity, fellowship, service, and leadership — form an interconnected framework. Personally, if I were to pinpoint what resonates most deeply with me, it would undoubtedly be the pursuit of leadership. Within the Rotary context, the call for collaboration is inherently tied to setting a personal example.”
Gaetano Scamarcio
- PhD in experimental physics, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Italy, 1989
- Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, 1994-95
- Rotary Alumni Global Service Award, 2023-24
Scamarcio’s belief in the power of leadership has influenced his Rotary activities and his professional pursuits. As the president of his club in 2013-14, he spearheaded Rotary Meets the Road, a project to help homeless people in Bari. Devising a workable strategy required qualities similar to those needed in the laboratory, such as the patience for trial and error.
“We started putting a lot of ideas on the table and finally came up with the idea of using a camper to distribute food in a dignified and hygienic way,” he says. “But that was just the starting point. Other organizations wanted to use the camper as a headquarters to give medical support, and then people began offering legal support. The project really exploded and went beyond the initial idea.”
To get their new vehicle on the road, Scamarcio and his club conducted some diplomatic outreach. They obtained the cooperation of the other Rotary clubs in Bari, Rotary members throughout the district, officials of Bari’s city government, and representatives of a local public transit company. “The success of this service underscores the power of synergy and collective action in addressing social issues,” he says.
Scamarcio was later able to draw on his scientific background for another service project. He created a smartphone app to help people with disabilities navigate Bari’s streets. Called Bari4All, it received the Significant Achievement Award from Rotary International Past President Ron D. Burton. Scamarcio’s work to help the citizens of Bari also led to him being honored with the city’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Scamarcio uses both his scientific and interpersonal skills in his work as a physics researcher and teacher. Besides inventing the superlattice quantum cascade microlaser, which is now used in systems for environmental monitoring and quantum physics, he recently contributed to the development of a single-molecule, transistor-type sensor that can be used for early detection of life-threatening diseases. “This new technique has a great potential to detect the presence of antigens which are correlated with problems like cancer,” he says. “We’ve used it to detect the precursor of pancreatic cancer.”
Left: Scamarcio’s Ambassadorial Scholarship took him to Nokia Bell Labs in New Jersey. Right: Scamarcio (right) poses with Rotary members from what was then District 7470, which hosted him during his fruitful years of research in the United States. Courtesy of Gaetano Scamarcio
Meanwhile, he has had the satisfaction of teaching more than 1,000 physics students as a professor at the University of Bari Aldo Moro. He also coordinated the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards for his district in 2016, 2017, and 2022. “The interaction with about 45 young future leaders has been very rewarding, and a great experience for them and for us all,” he says.
Observing members of younger generations, he’s been struck by their “profound hunger for ethics” and desire for professional and moral role models. “I’ve observed a significant interest among young people in ethical issues, such as community development and environmental sustainability amid technological advancements,” he says. He’s particularly impressed by his students’ conscientious vision of their role in shaping society and protecting the environment.
“Sharing and teaching these ethical perspectives to young minds has been an immensely gratifying aspect of my career,” he says. “I aspire to leverage the platform of Rotary to further enrich and empower future generations.”
This story originally appeared in the June 2024 issue of Rotary magazine.