Spotlight

Stefano Vitale graduated (Laurea summa cum laude) in physics from the University of Rome (now “La Sapienza”) in 1976. He moved to the University of Trento in Italy in 1977, where he was appointed associate professor in 1985 and full professor in 1994. At the University of Trento, he is the head of the Laboratory for Experimental Gravitation at the Department of Physics and has served in various positions including that of “pro-rettore vicario” (equivalent to pro-vice-chancellor in UK or vice-chancellor in the USA). He is a research associate of the National Institute for Nuclear Physics in Italy (INFN) and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) He has been a visiting scholar/professor both at the University of California at Berkeley and at Stanford University. He has been a co-founder in 1989 and co-principal investigator (co-PI) of the acoustic, ultra-cryogenic Gravitational Wave (GW) Detector AURIGA of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) in Italy. He also has been part of the core team of the LISA project since 1995, and a member of its international ESA/NASA science team since its foundation. He has been a co-proposer of the current ESA LISA L3 mission. He serves on the Executive Committee of the LISA Consortium. He has been the Principal Investigator of the LISA Technology Package, LISA Pathfinder’s sole scientific instrument, from early mission design, throughout mission development, and to the end of science operations. 

He has served/is serving in various committees:  

• Chair, ESA Fundamental Physics Advisory Group. 
• Member of ESA Space Science Advisory Committee. 
• Chair of ESA Science Program Committee (SPC) 
• Member of ESA GW Observatory Advisory Committee 
• Member European Space Science Committee 
• Member of Gravitational Wave International Committee (GWIC) of IUPAP 
• Member of the Board of the Gravitational Physics section of the European Physical Society 
• Vice-chair COSPAR commission-H 
• Has been serving on various ad hoc and standing review committees (ESA SSD review committee, ESA M-4 selection committee, Max-Planck Society Fachbeirat…) 

He has been awarded the Amaldi Medal (European Prize for Gravitation of the Italian Gravitation Society) in 2018, the Tycho Brahe Medal of the European Astronomical Society in 2020, and asteroid N 19331, of IAU Catalogue of Minor Planets, has been named Stefanovitale.