Name:
Maria Pia Di Mauro
ORCID:
Actual Position:
Staff Astronomer at INAF-IAPS Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali
Previous Position:
Staff Astronomer at INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Catania
Brief BIO
MPDM is a full-time Astronomer at INAF, Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica,
with main interests in the physical properties of solar and stellar structure and
evolution. She is one of the main experts in Italy in Asteroseismology of solar-
like stars, the study of structure and dynamics of stars by small stellar pulsations.
She
got the master's degree in 1995 by discussing a thesis on the results obtained by
using new Helioseismic data detected from the space by MDI instrument flying
on SOHO (SOlar Heliospheric Observatory).
After some experience as Ph.D. student in Warsaw at the Nicolaus Copernicus
Center under the supervision of Prof W. Dziembowski, in 1999 she obtained her Ph.D. in Physics and got a fellowship offered by CNAA (Consortium of National Astronomy and Astrophysics) to
spend a few months in Vancouver at the University of British Columbia collaborating with Prof. J. Matthews (PI: Most satellite). She was
postdoc and teacher in stellar oscillations in Denmark at the Department of
Physics of the University of Aarhus from 1999 to 2001, working within the team of Prof. J. Christensen-Dalsgaard. In 2001 she got a
permanent position as staff astronomer at the Astrophysical Observatory of
Catania and in 2005 she moved to IAPS, Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia
Spaziali in Rome.
She wrote more than 100 articles published on main international scientific journals, 34 as first author, for more than 3000
citations.
She is IAU elected member of the Commission G4 - Pulsating Stars and member of the ASI working group 'Astrophysics' of ASI (the Italian Space Agency)
to plan the roadmap and frontiers of future Space Research in Italy.
In addition she is review editor for the "AAS-IOP ebook series" and for the journal ’Review in Modern Physics”.
In 2022 she got the award as "Oustanding Referee for 2022" by the APS American Physical Society.
She is PI of the project 'Synergic tools for characterizing
solar-like stars and habitability conditions
of exoplanets' funded by two years INAF theory grant
She was PI for INAF and co-founder of HELAS, the European Network in Helio- and Asteroseismology, funded from
2006-2010 as a Coordinating Action within the FP6 framework of the European Commission.
She is Member of the International Scientific Commission "Sciences Exactes et Naturelles – 2
(SEN-2)" of the Fund for Scientific Research-FNRS, Belgium and she
has been part of the Scientific Advisory board appointed by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MIUR)
for VQR (Evaluation of the Quality of the Research) and Premio 'Rita Levi Montalcini'; she has been member of the review
panel for assignment of national funding through PRIN, SIR, FIRB and other competitions.
She is Expert Reviewer for ERC by European Research Council, for project grants by the Narodowe Centrum Kultury
(National Centre for Culture) of Polish Ministry of Education and for post-doc grants by Research Foundation - Flanders
(Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek - Vlaanderen, FWO Belgium).
She takes also part to outreach activities of her institute for students of schools and general public, partecipating every year
to the Research night event, Maker Faire, The week of Light etc. Since 2015, she organizes selection for the Italian
Astronomy Olympiad and was team leader of the International Astronomy Olympiad in 2016.