Ilaria Pascucci is an Italian-American astrophysicist and planetary scientist known for her research on

exoplanet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet was in 1992 around a pulsar, and the first detection around a main-sequence star was in 1995. A different planet, first det ...

protoplanet A protoplanet is a large planetary embryo that originated within a protoplanetary disk and has undergone internal melting to produce a differentiated interior. Protoplanets are thought to form out of kilometer-sized planetesimals that gravitatio ...

s, the formation of planets, and

protoplanetary disk A protoplanetary disk is a rotating circumstellar disc of dense gas and dust surrounding a young newly formed star, a T Tauri star, or Herbig Ae/Be star. The protoplanetary disk may not be considered an accretion disk; while the two are sim ...

s, using a combination of theory, simulation, and observation. Pascucci is a professor and associate department head in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it ...

Education and career

Pascucci earned a master's degree in astronomy,

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...

, from the

University of Bologna The University of Bologna (, abbreviated Unibo) is a Public university, public research university in Bologna, Italy. Teaching began around 1088, with the university becoming organised as guilds of students () by the late 12th century. It is the ...

in 1999, working there with Giorgio Palumbo, Malcolm Walmsley, and

Paola Caselli Paola Caselli (born 1966) is an Italian astronomer and astrochemist known for her research on molecular clouds, star formation and planet formation, and the astrochemistry behind the materials found within the Solar System. She is the director o ...

. After graduate study at the

University of Jena The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany. The university was established in 1558 and is cou ...

, she became a doctoral fellow of the

Max Planck Society The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. Founded in 1911 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, it was renamed to the M ...

, and completed her Ph.D. in 2004 at the

Max Planck Institute for Astronomy The Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, MPIA) is a research institute of the Max Planck Society (MPG). It is located in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany near the top of the Königstuhl (Odenwald), Kön ...

under the supervision of Thomas Henning. After postdoctoral research at the University of Arizona from 2004 to 2008, she became a research scientist at

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

from 2008 to 2011, and a staff astronomer at the

Space Telescope Science Institute The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) is the science operations center for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), science operations and mission operations center for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and science operations center for the ...

from 2009 to 2011. In 2011, she took a faculty position as an assistant professor in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the

. In 2016 she was promoted to associate professor and in 2022 became full professor.

Recognition

The

American Astronomical Society The American Astronomical Society (AAS, sometimes spoken as "double-A-S") is an American society of professional astronomers and other interested individuals, headquartered in Washington, DC. The primary objective of the AAS is to promote the adv ...

(AAS) named Pascucci to the 2022 class of AAS Fellows, "for her scientific contributions to the understanding of how planet-forming disks evolve and disperse".

References

External links

Home page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pascucci, Ilaria Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American astrophysicists American women astronomers Italian women astrophysicists Italian astrophysicists Planetary scientists Women planetary scientists University of Bologna alumni University of Arizona faculty Fellows of the American Astronomical Society