Rosalba Perna is an Italian and American theoretical astrophysicist whose research concerns high-energy cosmic sources including

gamma-ray burst In gamma-ray astronomy, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are extremely energetic events occurring in distant Galaxy, galaxies which represent the brightest and most powerful class of explosion in the universe. These extreme Electromagnetic radiation, ele ...

s and

neutron star merger A neutron star merger is the stellar collision of neutron stars. When two neutron stars fall into mutual orbit, they gradually inspiral, spiral inward due to the loss of energy emitted as gravitational radiation. When they finally meet, their me ...

s. She has also studied

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 ...

s and the growth of

supermassive black hole A supermassive black hole (SMBH or sometimes SBH) is the largest type of black hole, with its mass being on the order of hundreds of thousands, or millions to billions, of times the mass of the Sun (). Black holes are a class of astronomical ...

s. She is professor of physics and astronomy at

Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public university, public research university in Stony Brook, New York, United States, on Long Island. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is on ...

Education and career

Perna earned a

laurea In Italy, the ''laurea'' is the main post-secondary academic degree. The name originally referred literally to the laurel wreath, since ancient times a sign of honor and now worn by Italian students right after their official graduation ceremo ...

at the

University of Salerno The University of Salerno () (in acronym UNISA) is a university located in Fisciano and in Baronissi, Italy. Its main campus is located in Fisciano while the Faculty of Medicine is located in Baronissi. It is organized in ten faculties. H ...

in 1993, with a thesis concerning the

quantum Hall effect The quantum Hall effect (or integer quantum Hall effect) is a quantized version of the Hall effect which is observed in two-dimensional electron systems subjected to low temperatures and strong magnetic fields, in which the Hall resistance exhi ...

. In the same year, she also earned a diploma in music, as a piano player, at the Conservatory of Music Carlo Gesualdo Da Venosa in

Potenza Potenza (, ; ; , Potentino dialect: ''Putenz'') is a ''comune'' in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata (former Lucania). Capital of the Province of Potenza and the Basilicata region, the city is the highest regional capital and one of ...

. She completed a Ph.D. in physics at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

in 1999, with the dissertation ''Theoretical studies of Gamma-Ray Bursts'' supervised by

Avi Loeb Abraham "Avi" Loeb (; born February 26, 1962) is an Israeli and American theoretical physicist who works on astrophysics and cosmology. Loeb is the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University, where since 2007 he has been Direc ...

. She continued at Harvard as a

Harvard Junior Fellow The Society of Fellows is a group of scholars selected at the beginnings of their careers by Harvard University for their potential to advance academic wisdom, upon whom are bestowed distinctive opportunities to foster their individual and intellect ...

from 1999 to 2003. She did continued postdoctoral research at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

as a Lyman Spitzer Fellow and then, in 2004, became an assistant professor of astrophysics at the

University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University o ...

. After earning tenure there in 2011, she moved to Stony Brook University in 2014, and became a full professor at Stony Brook in 2017.

Recognition

Perna won the SIGRAV Prize of the Italian Society for General Relativity and Gravitation in 2010. In 2014 she 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), after a nomination from the APS Division of Astrophysics, "for her pioneering contributions to our understanding of the long and short gamma-ray bursts, including the development of advanced models to describe their properties and environments, calculations of their particle and radiative emission, and innovative treatment of the time-dependent photoinization in the dusty environment around the bursts".

References

External links

Home page
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Perna, Rosalba Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American astrophysicists American women astronomers American women physicists Italian astrophysicists Italian women physicists University of Salerno alumni Harvard University alumni University of Colorado Boulder faculty Fellows of the American Physical Society