Laura Ferrarese is a researcher in space science at the

National Research Council of Canada The National Research Council Canada (NRC; french: Conseil national de recherches Canada) is the primary national agency of the Government of Canada dedicated to science and technology research & development. It is the largest federal research ...

. Her primary work has been performed using data from the

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most vers ...

and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope.

Early life and career

Laura Ferrarese was born in

Padua Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

and studied at the University of Padova, going on to receive a PhD in

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

from

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

in 1996. She was a Hubble Postdoctoral Fellow at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

before becoming a professor at

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...

in 2000. In 2004, she moved to the National Research Council (Canada), where she is now a Principal Research Officer. In July 2017, Ferrarese accepted a 16-month long appointment as Interim Director of the

Gemini Observatory The Gemini Observatory is an astronomical observatory consisting of two 8.1-metre (26.6 ft) telescopes, Gemini North and Gemini South, which are located at two separate sites in Hawaii and Chile, respectively. The twin Gemini telescopes prov ...

Research

Laura Ferrarese's work has earned her the opportunity to spearhead projects using facilities such as the

and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. Her work concentrates on the masses of

supermassive black holes 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 ob ...

and the stellar velocity dispersions of their host galaxies, and how they affect each other. She has also researched active galactic nuclei, galaxy dynamics and scaling relations, the extragalactic distance scale and the expansion rate of the Universe. In her work, Ferrarese uses data from ground and space-based observatories, including the

(HST), the

Chandra X-ray Observatory The Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO), previously known as the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF), is a Flagship-class space telescope launched aboard the during STS-93 by NASA on July 23, 1999. Chandra is sensitive to X-ray sources 1 ...

and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT). According to the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System, she has published 177 peer reviewed papers, which have collected over 20,000 citation. Her

h-index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with obvious success indicators such as ...

is 66. Ferrarese is currently a vice president of the

International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; french: link=yes, Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a nongovernmental organisation with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreac ...

(IAU) and she is serving on the board of directors of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. From 2012 to 2014, she served as president of the Canadian Astronomical Society (CASCA). Ferrarese has also served on the board of directors for the

Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) is a consortium of universities and other institutions that operates astronomical observatories and telescopes. Founded October 10, 1957, with the encouragement of the National S ...

(AURA) and she has chaired the AURA Oversight Council for Gemini (AOC-G), among other appointments.

Teaching

Ferrarese has taught at the

University of Victoria The University of Victoria (UVic or Victoria) is a public research university located in the municipalities of Oak Bay and Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. The university traces its roots to Victoria College, the first post-secondary insti ...

, Universitá di Padova, and SIGRAV School on Contemporary Relativity and Gravitational Physics.

Recognition and awards

Ferrarese has won several awards, including the

Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee medal The Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal (french: Médaille du jubilé de diamant de la reine Elizabeth II) or The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal was a commemorative medal created in 2012 to mark the 60th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's ...

in 2012, the Helen Sayer Hogg Prize in 2014, and the Peter G. Martin Award in 2015. In 2020, she was elected as a

Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada Fellowship of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Canada judges to have "made remarkable contributions in the arts, the humanities and the sciences, as well as in Canadian public lif ...

. On 30 November 2000, Ferrarese was featured in one of the episodes called "supermassive black holes" in the '' Horizon'' TV series.

Publications

Ferrarese's most cited peer-review publications include: * "A Fundamental Relation between Supermassive Black Holes and Their Host Galaxies", appeared in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, 2000 * "Final Results from the Hubble Space Telescope Key Project to Measure the Hubble Constant", appeared in the Astrophysical Journal, 2001 * "Central Masses and Broad-Line Region Sizes of Active Galactic Nuclei. II. A Homogeneous Analysis of a Large Reverberation-Mapping Database", appeared in the Astrophysical Journal, 2004 * "Supermassive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei: Past Present and Future Research", appeared in Space Science Reviews, 2005 * "Beyond the Bulge: A Fundamental Relation between Supermassive Black Holes and Dark Matter Halos", appeared in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, 2002 * "The ACS Virgo Cluster Survey. VI. Isophotal Analysis and the Structure of Early-Type Galaxies", appeared in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, 2006

Affiliations

Laura Ferrarese is an active member of the IAU (

) and is affiliated with Division B Facilities, Technologies and Data Science, Division H Interstellar Matter and Local Universe and Division J Galaxies and Cosmology. She was a Past Member of Division VIII Galaxies & the Universe until 2012 and Commission 28 Galaxies until 2015 within the IAU. She is also a member of the American Astronomical Society and of the Canadian Astronomical Society.

References

External links

* External Webpage: * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ferrarese, Laura Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century Canadian astronomers 21st-century Italian astronomers Italian women scientists 20th-century Canadian women scientists Johns Hopkins University alumni Rutgers University faculty 21st-century Canadian women scientists Women astronomers California Institute of Technology faculty Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Scientists from Padua