Andrea Possenti

Andrea Possenti holds a degree in Physics from the University of Milan, a PhD in Astronomy from the University of Bologna, and is a Research Director at INAF (National Institute of Astrophysics), where he heads the Scientific Directorate office dedicated to computing and data management in astrophysics. He is the Italian representative on the Resource Board of the SKA computing centre network, the most powerful radio telescope ever conceived. He has served as Director of the Cagliari Observatory and his research focuses on pulsars. He is part of the small group of European scientists who received the Descartes Prize 2005, thanks to the discovery of over 700 pulsars and, in particular, together with Marta Burgay and Nichi D'Amico, of the first and still only Double pulsar. He is among the founders of the EPTA, namely the European Pulsar Timing Array experiment, which aims to detect ultra-long period gravitational waves. He is the author of over 390 papers in international journals and has been extensively involved in science communication, with more than 300 lectures and two books dedicated respectively to the phenomena of Eclipses and Comets.