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Alessandra Aloisi

Head, Science Mission Office
Alessandra Aloisi headshot

As the head of the science mission office, Dr. Alessandra Aloisi oversees the career development of more than 150 research staff members and postdoctoral researchers; oversees the peer review process for orbit allocation of both the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope; and is responsible for the institute’s library, conference attendance, visitor programs, and internal grants. From 2017 to 2018, she served as the institute’s deputy mission head of the Science Mission Office. Before this, Dr. Aloisi served as deputy division head of the operations and engineering division for several years, co-managing a group of more than 250 technical personnel, engineers, astronomers, and scientists who oversee the ground system efforts, including the planning and scheduling, integration and testing, and data management of the observatories we support.

Dr. Aloisi joined the institute’s research staff in 2003, working first for the European Space Agency and transferring to a position with the Association of the Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) in 2009. She started at the institute as an instrument scientist for Hubble’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph and the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, and became the lead for the team responsible for the calibration, operations, and user support of these spectrographs just before Hubble’s fourth servicing mission. She launched her career as a postdoctoral researcher at the institute before becoming a postdoctoral researcher and then an associate research scientist at Johns Hopkins University.

Throughout her career, Dr. Aloisi has planned, reduced, and interpreted data from an array of Hubble instruments. She was also an expert user of the Far-Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE). She has co-authored more than 200 articles. Dr. Aloisi also regularly presents at conferences, including the American Astronomical Society Meeting, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series, the IAU Symposium, and the SPIE Conference. Her primary fields of technical expertise are in ultraviolet/optical spectroscopy and optical/near-infrared imaging with space-based telescopes, science with data archives, and optimization of science through technology leadership and management.

Education:

PhD in Astronomy, Bologna University
Laurea in Astronomy, Bologna University

 

Science/Research Interests:

  • High spatial resolution UV/optical/NIR imaging and UV/optical spectroscopy
  • Crowded field photometry
  • Resolved stellar populations in star-forming galaxies
  • Star-formation histories of star-forming galaxies
  • Absorption-line spectroscopy
  • Interstellar medium in nearby star-forming galaxies
  • Feedback in star-forming galaxies

 

Research Topics: Star Formation, Histories, and Evolution; Interstellar Medium; Resolved Stellar Populations; Astrochemistry; Chemical Abundances

 

Professional Websites: LinkedIn

 

ORCID ID: 0000-0003-4137-882X

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