Francesca Panessa

Francesca Panessa is an astrophysicist and a permanent Senior Researcher at the Institute of Space Astrophysics and Planetology in Rome, INAF. She has over twenty years of experience in high-energy research and radio astronomy, with a particular focus on the study of active galactic nuclei, black holes, and the processes of matter accretion and ejection.

After graduating in Astronomy from the University of Bologna with top marks and honors, he obtained a PhD in Astronomy, also at the University of Bologna. Throughout his career, he has gained significant international experience, thanks to a Marie Curie fellowship at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, a “Juan de la Cierva” postdoctoral fellowship at the Instituto de Física de Cantabria in Spain, and research periods as a Visiting Scientist at prestigious international institutions, including the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, University of Southampton, Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, and New York University Abu Dhabi.

His scientific activity focuses particularly on the physical phenomena related to black holes and active galactic nuclei, with a multi-frequency approach that integrates radio, millimetric, infrared, optical, ultraviolet, and X-ray observations. He is Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator of over 200 observational proposals conducted with international telescopes and space missions, including Chandra, XMM-Newton, INTEGRAL, NuSTAR, HST, JVLA, LOFAR, VLBA, and EVN.

Author of a very extensive scientific production, she has 259 publications, of which 63 as first author, an H-index of 39, and over 6,800 citations. In 2019, she was the first author of a review paper published in Nature Astronomy dedicated to the origin of radio emission in radio-quiet active galactic nuclei.

Throughout his career, he has held leadership roles in important national and international projects and working groups. He is a core member of the VLBI Square Kilometre Array Focus Group, a member of the LISA consortium, the Science Working Groups of Athena and the LOFAR collaboration, as well as a contributing scientist to the THESEUS mission. He has also participated in numerous evaluation committees for observatories, research programs, and international fellowships, including Horizon Europe – Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, NASA Hubble Fellowship Programme, and several observing time allocation committees.

Alongside research activities, Panessa is committed to training new generations of researchers. She gives lectures for doctoral courses at the Universities of Rome Tor Vergata and La Sapienza, has conducted international scientific training activities, and has supervised doctoral theses, master's theses, bachelor's theses, research grants, and post-doctoral fellowships.

She is also active in scientific dissemination and in promoting the culture of science. Since 2024, she has been the creator, director, actress, and presenter of the science-theater show Crazy Space, which premiered at the Genoa Science Festival and was subsequently performed in various theaters. She has participated in institutional events dedicated to the relationship between women, science, technology, and leadership, speaking, among others, at the Senate, the Italian Space Agency, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and numerous schools on the occasion of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science.