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Violette Impellizzeri

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Violette Impellizzeri
Violette Impellizzeri (right) receiving an award from the Chilean Senate
Born14 August 1977
Palermo, Italy
NationalityItalian
Alma materUniversity of Bristol
Max Planck Institute für Radioastronomie
Occupation(s)Astronomer, astrophysicist and university lecturer

Violette Impellizzeri (born 14 August 1977) is an Italian astronomer and astrophysicist specializing in active galactic nuclei and molecular clouds surrounding supermassive black holes. She is currently a professor at Leiden University, where she conducts research on these phenomena using radio interferometry.[1]

Biography

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Impellizzeri was born in Saronno, a comune in the Province of Varese, Italy. She completed her primary and secondary education in Alcamo, Sicily, before relocating with her family to Karlsruhe, Germany, where her father worked as a teacher.[citation needed]

She completed her studies at the European School in Karlsruhe, where she obtained her European Baccalaureate.[2] In 1995, she entered the University of Bristol;later she returned to Germany to complete a master's degree in physics and earned a PhD in astrophysics at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn. She continued her studies by doing a postdoctoral fellowship in Charlottesville, Virginia (USA), at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), where she worked for three years in the Megamaser Physical Cosmology Project (MCP).

Following her doctoral studies, Impellizzeri conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Virginia.[3] She also spent three years at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), focusing on physical cosmology and megamasers as part of the megamaser Cosmology Project.[4]

Since 2011, she has worked as an astronomer at the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile. In October 2020, she returned to Europe to serve as a program manager with Allegro (ALMA Local Expertise Group)[5] and the European ALMA Regional Center node in the Netherlands, hosted by Leiden Observatory. She currently teaches at Leiden University.[2]

Activity

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During her doctoral studies at the Max Planck Institute, she mainly focused on active galactic nuclei on Radio Astronomy. As part of her research, she conducted a series of observations using the Effelsberg 100-m Radio Telescope to detect water masers in distant galaxies. Her discoveries were later confirmed by observations made with the Very Large Array Radio Telescope in New Mexico, operated by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

In 2007, while at the University of Virginia, Impellizzeri was recruited by a cosmological research initiative, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, to contribute to the Megamaser Cosmology Project. She coordinated research efforts at the Green Bank Telescope in Virginia, integrating these with observations made using the Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) system. Impellizzeri worked on the project for three years and continued to work on it for an additional ten years.[6]

Impellizzeri joined the Atacama Cosmology Telescope project as an NRAO astronomer, working with a radio telescope operating at an altitude of 5,000 meters. She was responsible for integrating VLBI observations within the Atacama Large Millimeter Array under the title of “Friend of VLBI”.[7] Her role involved data integration with other remote telescopes, achieving a baseline of 10,000 kilometers and effectively simulating what a single telescope of such a large diameter would have been able to do.[8]

Honours

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  • Earned the title of “Woman of Stars”[9] and published a paper in Nature on the discovery of the most ancient water in the universe.
  • 11 August 2018: Awarded the Tablet Paul Harris Fellow by Rotary Clubs for her contributions to the diffusion of Italian culture.
  • 18 April 2019: Awarded a medal by the Chilean government, as official recognition for her work done in the exploration of black holes.
  • 12 August 2019: Received a Tablet from the Mayor of Alcamo in recognition of her work in scientific research.
  • 5 September 2019: Together with the other astrophysicists who took the first image of a black hole, Impellizzeri was awarded the Breakthrough Prize (2020).[10]
  • 11 August 2021: Annual Prize of the Kiwanis Club of Alcamo, with the following remark: “To Violette Impellizzeri, an astronomer with international fame, for her dedication to the study of the mysteries of the universe and the safeguarding of the environment”.
  • 28 November 2022: KHMW Outreach Award for her project ALMA for Leiden.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "STRW local: Pers". local.strw.leidenuniv.nl. Retrieved 12 October 2024.
  2. ^ a b "Violette Impellizzeri". universiteitleiden.nl/.
  3. ^ "Astrofisica? Può essere semplice. Violette Impellizzeri lo sa". 16 October 2016.
  4. ^ "Violette Impellizzeri to head astronomy and operations department". ASTRON. 31 May 2024. Retrieved 28 August 2024.
  5. ^ "ABOUT US". ALMA Regional Centre Allegro. Retrieved 29 October 2024.
  6. ^ "International Astronomical Union - IAU". iau.org. Retrieved 17 October 2023.
  7. ^ "La foto del secolo? Perché non mi emoziona l'immagine del Buco nero M87". 11 April 2019.
  8. ^ "Black Hole Imaged for First Time by Event Horizon Telescope". 15 April 2017.
  9. ^ [citation needed]
  10. ^ "Breakthrough Prize – Winners of the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, Fundamental Physics and Mathematics Announced".

Sources

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