Prof Roberto Maiolino

Biography

Roberto Maiolino is professor of Experimental Astrophysics at the Cavendish Laboratory (Department of Physics) and at the Kavli Institute for Cosmology of the University of Cambridge; he is also Honorary Professor at University College London and Royal Society Research Professor.
He received his MS in Physics at the University of Florence in 1992 and the PhD in Astronomy at the University of Florence in 1996, with secondment at the Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona. From 1995 to 1997 he was postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrische Physik, in Garching (Munich). From 1997 to 2006 he was astronomer at the Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory (Florence) and then, from 2006 to 2012, he was senior astronomer at the Astronomical Observatory of Rome, prior to the appointment at the University of Cambridge. In 2018 he was knighted by the Italian President in the Order of the Star of Italy. In 2022 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society.

Full Curriculum Vitae:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Eu7w6G_76O0pP-jlteyckASXvZ0sqtB2/view?usp=sharing

Research

Roberto Maiolino is active in various areas of extragalactic astronomy, and in particular in the observational investigation of the formation, evolution and transformation of galaxies and black holes. In the recent years he has focused on the search and characterisation of the first generation of stars and black holes in the early Universe, the chemical evolution of galaxies and of the intergalactic medium, the evolution of the gas and dust content in galaxies, and the mechanisms responsible for quenching star formation in galaxies.
He exploits multi-wavelength observations obtained at some of the major telescopes, both ground-based and in space.

He is member of the Instrument Science Team of NIRSpec, the near infrared multi-object spectrograph for the James Webb Space Telescope. He is the Project Scientist and Co-PI of MOONS, the Multi-Object near-IR spectrograph for the Very Large Telescope, and Project Scientist of ANDES, the high resolution spectrograph for the Extremely Large Telescope.