Graziella is Professor of Space Astronomy at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory of University College London (UCL). She has a Physics degree from the University of Milano, and a PhD in X-ray Astronomy from UCL; she also worked at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, for a couple of years. She has participated in major X-ray observatory missions: Copernicus, Ariel 5 and the Einstein Observatory in the 70s, EXOSAT in the 80s, ROSAT in the 90s.
She is Co-I for the XMM-Newton RGS and co-leader of the Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer mission (SMILE), jointly developed by ESA and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Her scientific interests encompass the whole range of astronomical X-ray sources, from AGN to solar system objects (and our own Earth).
The latter is reflected in the activities she carries out in support of Athena. Graziella is a member of the Athena X-IFU Science Advisory Team and co-chair of the Topical Panel on ‘Solar system objects and exoplanets’. Graziella has been fascinated by astronomy and space research since she was a teenager and considers herself very fortunate to have been able to make a career out of her scientific passion.
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Image: Polar projection of HST FUV view of Jupiter’s Northern aurora (orange); over-plotted small green dots: < 2 keV photons detected by Chandra, large green dots: > 2 keV photons.