Paola Caselli (born 26 July 1966) is an Italian astronomer andastrochemist known for her research onmolecular clouds,star formation andplanet formation, and the astrochemistry behind the materials found within theSolar System.[1] She is the director of theMax Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics nearMunich in Germany. She also holds an honorary professorship atLudwig Maximilian University of Munich.[2][3]
Caselli was born on 26 July 1966 inFollonica, Italy,[2] and as a teenager was inspired to work in space science and molecular clouds by a teacher who gave herFred Hoyle's 1957 science fiction novelThe Black Cloud to read.[1] She earned alaurea in astronomy and physics in 1990, from theUniversity of Bologna, and completed her Ph.D. there in 1994.[2][3]
After postdoctoral research at theCenter for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, she became a researcher at theArcetri Observatory inFlorence, Italy, in 1996, and remained there until 2005. For the next two years, she was a visiting scholar at theUniversity of California, Berkeley and atHarvard University.[3] In 2007 she became a professor of astronomy at theUniversity of Leeds, and in 2011 became head of astrophysics at Leeds. She joined the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics as its director in 2014.[2]
While continuing at the Max Planck Institute, she has also held temporary positions as Hasselblad Guest Professor at theOnsala Space Observatory in Sweden and as Blaauw Professor at theUniversity of Groningen in the Netherlands.[3]
