Max Pettini (born 15 June 1949) is a Professor of

observational astronomy Observational astronomy is a division of astronomy that is concerned with recording data about the observable universe, in contrast with theoretical astronomy, which is mainly concerned with calculating the measurable implications of physical ...

at the Institute of Astronomy,

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

.Pettini, Max
at

ISIHighlyCited.com The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) was an academic publishing service, founded by Eugene Garfield in Philadelphia in 1956. ISI offered scientometric and bibliographic database services. Its specialty was citation indexing and analysis, ...

Pettini was born in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

but studied for a BSc in Physics then a PhD in Astrophysics at

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

. Aside from four years at the

Anglo-Australian Observatory The Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO), formerly the Anglo-Australian Observatory, was an optical and near-infrared astronomy observatory with its headquarters in North Ryde in suburban Sydney, Australia. Originally funded jointly by the U ...

Epping, New South Wales Epping is a suburb of Sydney, in the Australian States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales, north-west of the Sydney central business district in the Local government in Australia, local government area of the City of Parramat ...

from 1987 to 1991, his academic career has been based in the United Kingdom, and he holds British citizenship. His early research obtained observational evidence that verified a prediction that the

Milky Way The Milky Way or Milky Way Galaxy is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the #Appearance, galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars in other arms of the galax ...

is surrounded by a halo of hot ionised gas. Pettini was awarded the

Herschel Medal The Herschel Medal is awarded by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) for "investigations of outstanding merit in observational astrophysics". It is awarded for a single piece of work so that younger scientists can be candidates for the award. It i ...

of the

Royal Astronomical Society The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) is a learned society and charitable organisation, charity that encourages and promotes the study of astronomy, planetary science, solar-system science, geophysics and closely related branches of science. Its ...

in 2008. In May 2010, he was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

. Together with Ryan Cooke, he was awarded the 2025

Gruber Prize in Cosmology The Gruber Prize in Cosmology, established in 2000, is one of three prestigious international awards worth US$500,000 awarded by the Gruber Foundation, a non-profit organization based at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Since 2001, t ...

. Pettini had previously supervised Cooke from 2008 to 2011, when the latter was completing his doctorate at Cambridge.

References

1949 births Living people Scientists from Rome 20th-century British astronomers Astronomers at the University of Cambridge Alumni of University College London Fellows of the Royal Society Italian emigrants to the United Kingdom {{UK-astronomer-stub