Giorgio Parisi, professor of physics at the University of Rome La Sapienza, is the recipient of the ICTP's 1999 Dirac Medal. He will receive the award at a ceremony to be held at the Centre later this year. Parisi's outstanding contributions to physics have spanned a broad range of topics, including elementary particle physics, phase transitions, statistical mechanics, mathematical physics, string theory, neural networks, disordered systems, and non-equilibrium statistical physics. He has worked at Columbia University, New York, USA, and the Institute des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques and Ecole Normale Superieure, in Paris, France. He has also led the APE project for the construction of an advanced fast computer under the sponsorship of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN). Parisi has written two books: Statistical Field Theory and Spin Glass Theory and Beyond (with Marc Mezard and Miguel Virasoro).