Enrico Fermi was an Italian physicist who made significant contributions to the development of quantum theory, nuclear and particle physics, and statistical mechanics. He is best known for his work on the development of the first nuclear reactor, which led to the development of nuclear energy. He also developed the Fermi-Dirac statistics, which describes the behavior of particles in a quantum system. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1938 for his work on induced radioactivity.