F. Tito Arecchi, V was born in 1933 in Reggio Calabria, Italy. He received his PhD in electrical engineering from the Politecnico di Milano in 1957. He held many teaching positions throughout his career, most recently as Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Firenze and was the Scientific Associate of Istituto Nazionale di Ottica del CNR.

Arecchi was a Fellow of the Society and a member of the Italian Physical Society, Italian Society of Optics and Photonics, Academie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences, Academia Europaea, and the Accademia Colombaria. He published more than 450 papers and served as editor on a number of journals all over the world. He was the recipient of the 1995 Max Born Award.

His main scientific contributions include cooperative effects in quantum optics, photon statistics and laser fluctuations, deterministic chaos in optics, pattern formation in extended media, and complex phenomena and cognitive processes.