Cecilia Lunardini is an Italian nuclear astrophysicist known for her research on

neutrino A neutrino ( ; denoted by the Greek letter ) is an elementary particle that interacts via the weak interaction and gravity. The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass is so small ('' -ino'') that i ...

s from the sun, from the

cosmic neutrino background The cosmic neutrino background is a proposed background particle radiation composed of neutrinos. They are sometimes known as relic neutrinos or sometimes abbreviated CNB or CB, where the symbol is the Greek letter '' nu'', standard particle p ...

, from

supernova A supernova (: supernovae or supernovas) is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. A supernova occurs during the last stellar evolution, evolutionary stages of a massive star, or when a white dwarf is triggered into runaway nuclear fusion ...

e and

failed supernova A failed supernova is an astronomical event in time domain astronomy in which a star suddenly brightens as in the early stage of a supernova, but then does not increase to the massive flux of a supernova. They could be counted as a subcategory o ...

e, and from collisions of stars with

black hole A black hole is a massive, compact astronomical object so dense that its gravity prevents anything from escaping, even light. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will form a black hole. Th ...

s. She is a professor of physics at

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public university, public research university in Tempe, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 as Territorial Normal School by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, the university is o ...

Education and career

Lunardini studied physics at the

University of Pavia The University of Pavia (, UNIPV or ''Università di Pavia''; ) is a university located in Pavia, Lombardy, Italy. There was evidence of teaching as early as 1361, making it one of the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest un ...

, graduating in 1998. She completed a Ph.D. in physics at the

International School for Advanced Studies The International School for Advanced Studies (Italian: ''Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati''; SISSA) is an international, state-supported, post-graduate-education and research institute in Trieste, Italy. SISSA is active in th ...

in 2001, under the supervision of Alexei Smirnov. Her dissertation won the Giorgio Gamberini prize of the

Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa The Scuola Normale Superiore (commonly known in Italy as "la Normale") is a public university in Pisa and Florence, Tuscany, Italy, currently attended by about 600 undergraduate and postgraduate (PhD) students. Together with the University of Pi ...

. After postdoctoral research at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...

and

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

, she became an assistant professor at the

in 2007, concurrently with a five-year research fellowship at the

Brookhaven National Laboratory Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratories, United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, New York, a hamlet of the Brookhaven, New York, Town of Brookhaven. It w ...

. She earned an Italian

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

in 2014, and was promoted to full professor in 2018.

Recognition

Lunardini was named a

Fellow of the American Physical Society The American Physical Society honors members with the designation ''Fellow'' for having made significant accomplishments to the field of physics. The following lists are divided chronologically by the year of designation. * List of fellows of the ...

(APS) in 2020, after a nomination by the APS Division for Nuclear Physics, "for outstanding contributions to nuclear and neutrino astrophysics, in particular to the theoretical analysis of supernova neutrino propagation and prospects for detection".

References

External links

Home page at Arizona State UniversityPersonal home page
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lunardini, Cecilia Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American astrophysicists American women physicists Italian astrophysicists Italian women astrophysicists Neutrino physicists University of Pavia alumni Arizona State University faculty Fellows of the American Physical Society 21st-century American women