Altarelli graduated in Physics from the
Sapienza University of Rome in 1963 with
Raoul Gatto whom he followed to the
University of Florence (1965–68). He held positions at New York University (1968–69), the
Rockefeller University (New York, 1969–70), the
École Normale Superieure in Paris (1976–77, 81) and
Boston University (1985–86). In 1970-92 he held a faculty position at the Sapienza University of Rome (full professor of theoretical physics since 1980). He was Director of the Rome Section of the INFN (1985–87). In 1992 he moved to the newly established
University of Roma Tre. In 1987-2006 he was a Senior Staff Physicist at the Theory Division of
CERN, and was Theory Division Leader from 2000-04. At CERN he had a leading role in the interpretation of SppS results, in the preparation of LEP and the LHC and in the theoretical analysis of the experimental results. In 2011 Altarelli gave a talk
The Mystery of Neutrino Mixing at the international symposium on subnuclear physics held in Vatican City. His best known contribution, obtained with
Giorgio Parisi in 1977, is the derivation of the
QCD evolution equations for parton densities, known as the Altarelli- Parisi or
DGLAP equations. ==Awards==