Viviana Acquaviva (born June 5, 1979) is an Italian astrophysicist who is a professor in the Department of Physics at the

New York City College of Technology The New York City College of Technology (City Tech) is a public college in New York City. Founded in 1946, it is the City University of New York's college of technology. History City Tech was founded in 1946 as The New York State Institute of ...

. Her research interests consider data science and machine learning for physics and astronomy. She was named one of Italy's most inspirational technologists in 2019.

Early life and education

Acquaviva studied physics at the University of Pisa, where she studied second order cosmological perturbations for her master thesis under the supervision of

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and

Paolo Paolicchi Paolo is both a given name and a surname, the Italian form of the name Paul. Notable people with the name include: People with the given name Paolo Art *Paolo Alboni (1671–1734), Italian painter *Paolo Abbate (1884–1973), Italian-American ...

. She then moved to the International School for Advanced Studies for her PhD. She was a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University and Rutgers University. Her research looked at dark energy,

modified models of gravity Modified may refer to: * ''Modified'' (album), the second full-length album by Save Ferris *Modified racing, or "Modifieds", an American automobile racing genre See also * Modification (disambiguation) Modification may refer to: * Modification ...

. She also she trained in statistics and analysed cosmic microwave background data.

Research and career

Acquaviva joined the faculty of

City University of New York The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven Upper divis ...

. Her research considers the development of computational tools to determine information about galaxy properties, including star formation history, the attenuation of dust and stellar mass. She created GalMC, a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm, that could be used to infer age, metallicity and star formation rate from

spectral energy distribution A spectral energy distribution (SED) is a plot of energy versus frequency or wavelength of light (not to be confused with a 'spectrum' of flux density vs frequency or wavelength). It is used in many branches of astronomy to characterize astron ...

(SED) fitting. She was part of Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS). She has shown that machine learning models can be used to understand the relationship between galaxy spectra and the histories of their star formation. Acquaviva seeks to improve diversity within the astrophysics community. She has led training programs for people from groups historically marginalized from astrophysics, including people in correctional facilities.

Awards and honors

* 2017 Feliks Gross Award * 2018 Italy 50 Most Influential Women in Tech * 2020 Top 50 Women in Computer Science * 2021

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 ...

Harlow Shapley Visiting Lecturer * 2021 "Tecnovisionarie" Italian Women in AI

Selected publications

* * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Acquaviva, Vivian Living people Italian women physicists University of Pisa alumni International School for Advanced Studies alumni 1979 births Italian astrophysicists City University of New York faculty