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 possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not recognized as such. The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, init ...

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

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 also be considered an accretion disk for the star itself, be ...

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 land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

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 Sou ...

, from the

University of Bologna The University of Bologna ( it, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, UNIBO) is a public research university in Bologna, Italy. Founded in 1088 by an organised guild of students (''studiorum''), it is the oldest university in continuo ...

in 1999, working there with Giorgio Palumbo, Malcolm Walmsley, and Paola Caselli. After graduate study at the

University of Jena The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (german: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany. The un ...

, she became a doctoral fellow of the

Max Planck Society The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (german: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e. V.; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. ...

, 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, adjacent to the ...

under the supervision of

Thomas Henning Thomas K. Henning (born 9 April 1956) is a German astrophysicist. Since 2001, he is a director at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy. Henning is an expert in the field of star and planet formation. Education and career Henning studied ph ...

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

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

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 th ...

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

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