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For the first time the Dirac medal, one of the main international scientific awards, was awarded to an Italian researcher, Alessandra Buonanno, who works in Germany, at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Potsdam. Awarded by the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics (Ictp), the Dirac medal awards Buonanno for his theoretical research on the basis of gravitational wave detection. In addition to being the first Italian, Buonanno is the second woman ever to receive the Dirac medal. The physicists Thibault Damour, Frans Pretorius and Saul Teukolsky were awarded with her.