Giovanna Tinetti

Giovanna Tinetti (born 1 April 1972) is an Italian physicist based in London. She is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at University College London, who researches galactic planetary science, exoplanets and atmospheric science.

Giovanna Tinetti
Tinetti talks about ARIEL in 2018
Born	(1972-04-01) 1 April 1972 (age 52) Turin
Education	University of Turin
Employer	University College London
Known for	Exoplanets

Early life and education

Giovanna Tinetti was born in 1972 in Turin, Italy.^[1] She earned an MA in Astrophysics in 1997 and an MSc in Fluid Dynamics and Energetics in 1998 at the University of Turin. She completed PhD in Theoretical Physics under Professor Luigi Sertorio in 2003.^[2][1]

Research and career

Tinetti joined NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2003 as a postdoctoral researcher and remained in NASA's Astrobiology Institute until 2005.^[3][4][5] She joined the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris as a European Space Agency as an external fellow in 2005, where she was the first to identify water vapour in the atmosphere of a planet beyond our solar system.^[6][7] She went on to secure a STFC Aurora Fellowship to pursue her research at University College London in 2007.^{[8][9][10][11]}

In 2009, Tinetti was made a research fellow of the Royal Society.^[12] She coordinated the European Space Agency's EChO Mission (Exoplanet Characterisation Observatory), which was backed by ESA, in 2013.^[13][14] She is the Principal Investigator of ARIEL, Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey, one of three candidate-missions selected by European Space Agency for the next medium class (M4) science mission and now confirmed to be launched in 2028.^[15][16][17] She is Principal Investigator for the European Research Council Consolidator program Exo-Lights - Decoding the light from other worlds.^[18]

She is on the editorial board of Springer's Experimental Astronomy and of Proceedings of the Royal Society A.^[19][20]

Public engagement and outreach

Tinetti regularly shares her enthusiasm for exoplanets and space science with non-expert audiences, contributing to websites, giving public lectures, appearing at science festivals and appearing on the television.^{[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]} Tinetti appears regularly on the BBC's Sky At Night and Stargazing Live.^[29][30][31] She featured in the 2012 Sky at Night Question and Answer book which accompanied the series.^[32] She has discussed the quest for exoplanets on several radio and television programs and podcasts.^[33][34]

In 2012, she was included in the London 2012 Olympics See Britain campaign, where recognised the "UK’s ability to harness the best from the past whilst looking to the future has created the perfect conditions for great scientific innovation".^[35][36]

In 2013 she released a popular science book, "I pianeti extrasolari" (Extrasolar Planets), describing the history of exoplanets, detection techniques and likelihood of finding alien life.^[37] In 2016, she was an invited speaker at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies.^[38]

Tinetti is co-director of Blue Skies Space Limited, a commercial enterprise for space science projects.^[39] She is the Science Lead for the Citizen Science project Twinkle, a small, low-cost spectroscopy mission that decodes the light from extrasolar planets developed by Surrey Satellite Technology and UCL.^[40]

Awards

2022 - Sir Arthur Clarke Award, British Interplanetary Society and the Arthur C Clarke Foundation^[41]

2011 - Moseley Medal & Prize, Institute of Physics^[42]

2009 - NASA Group Achievement Award, with Mark Swain and Gautam Vasisht^[43]

2009 - Edward Stone Award, JPL^[44]

1999 - SIF Award for best young Italian physicist, Italian Society of Physics^[43]

1998 - ENEA Award for best MSc thesis, Italian National Agency for Energy & Environment^[1]

See also

• List of women in leadership positions on astronomical instrumentation projects

References

1. "Giovanna Tinetti CV". giotin.org. Retrieved 2022-08-18.
2. "Professor Giovanna Tinetti". www.ucl.ac.uk. 25 April 2018. Retrieved 2022-08-18.
3. "Giovanna Tinetti". World Economic Forum. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
4. "| NASA Astrobiology Institute". nai.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
5. Assessment of the NASA Astrobiology Institute. National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on the Review of the NASA Astrobiology Institute. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press. 2008. ISBN 978-0309114981. OCLC 568512701.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
6. esa. "Water, water everywhere - on an extrasolar planet". European Space Agency. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
7. Miller, Steve (2012). The chemical cosmos : a guided tour. New York: Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. ISBN 978-1441984449. OCLC 759858110.
8. "Searching For Life On Other Worlds". Science 2.0. 27 August 2014. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
9. "First organic molecule on extra-solar planet found". www.ucl.ac.uk. 19 March 2008. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
10. "New Technique for Detecting Earth-like Planets - SpaceRef". spaceref.com. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
11. "19th October – School of Cosmic Physics Statutory Public Lecture 2017 – DIAS". www.dias.ie. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
12. "Giovanna Tinetti". royalsociety.org. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
13. "EChO". sci.esa.int. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
14. Gewin, Virginia (13 April 2011). "Turning point: Giovanna Tinetti". Nature. 472 (7342): 251. doi:10.1038/nj7342-251a.
15. "ARIEL Space Mission". ARIEL Space Mission. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
16. Tinetti, G.; Drossart, P.; Eccleston, P.; Hartogh, P.; Heske, A.; Leconte, J.; Micela, G.; Ollivier, M.; Pilbratt, G. (29 July 2016). MacEwen, Howard A; Fazio, Giovanni G; Lystrup, Makenzie; Batalha, Natalie; Siegler, Nicholas; Tong, Edward C (eds.). "The science of ARIEL (Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey)". Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2016: Optical. Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2016: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave. 9904. International Society for Optics and Photonics: 99041X. Bibcode:2016SPIE.9904E..1XT. doi:10.1117/12.2232370. S2CID 53530358.
17. ARIEL exoplanet mission selected as ESA’s next medium-class science mission. World Press. 20 March 2018.
18. "ERC Consolidator Grants 2013 Results" (PDF). European Research Council. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
19. "Experimental Astronomy - incl. option to publish open access (Editorial Board)". springer.com. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
20. "Editorial Board | Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences". rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
21. "Brave new worlds". Retrieved 2017-12-09.
22. "Giovanna Tinetti". New Scientist Live 2017. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
23. "Royal Astronomical Society". www.ras.org.uk. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
24. "National Space Academy - Professor Giovanna Tinetti". nationalspaceacademy.org. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
25. O’Connell, Claire (16 October 2017). "What is the weather like on exoplanets?". Silicon Republic. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
26. "BBC News - Reporter's log: Science festival". 14 September 2010. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
27. "Giovanna Tinetti". The Conversation. 22 July 2015. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
28. "Exoplanet explorers". royalsociety.org. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
29. BBC (5 October 2011), The Search For A Planet Like Earth - The Sky At Night - BBC One, retrieved 2017-12-09
30. "Search for a planet like Earth, The Sky at Night - BBC Four". BBC. October 2011. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
31. "Episode 3, Series 2, Stargazing Live - BBC Two". BBC. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
32. Patrick., Moore (2012). The sky at night. North, Chris (Chris E.). London: BBC. ISBN 978-1849903462. OCLC 772973696.
33. "Searching for new planets". Pod Academy. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
34. Redes - En busca de planetas habitados - RTVE.es (in European Spanish), 10 May 2009, retrieved 2017-12-09
35. "Giovanna Tinetti". webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 2011-01-07. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
36. Archives, The National. "The National Archives - Astrophysicist Giovanna Tinetti: science and innovation in the UK - Foreign & Commonwealth Office | Video Archive - UK Government Web Archive". webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
37. G. TINETTI, Extrasolar Planets (in Italian).
38. Israel Institute for Advanced Studies (5 January 2016), Giovanna Tinetti (University College London) Cosmochemistry and Galactic Context, retrieved 2017-12-09
39. "Blue Skies Space Ltd". www.blueskiesspace.co.uk. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
40. "Team". Twinkle. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
41. "Announcing the winners of the Sir Arthur Clarke Awards 2022". The British Interplanetary Society. 13 October 2023. Retrieved 2023-10-15.
42. Physics, Institute of. "2011 Moseley Medal and Prize". www.iop.org. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
43. . Giovanna Tinetti's website. Archived from the original on 2012-01-22. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
44. "JPL Ed Stone Awards for Outstanding Research Publications: 2007-2011 Awards". Caltech JPL Library. Retrieved 2017-12-09.