Massimo Stiavelli

Dr. Massimo Stiavelli, currently an astronomer at the institute, is on sabbatical leave for one year. From 2012 to 2024, he led the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) mission office at STScI. In this role, he was responsible for managing and prioritizing the work of 300 scientists, engineers, and technical staff. He also oversaw the team’s strategic planning, priority setting, and interaction with contacts at NASA and on external committees. During JWST commissioning, he led the mission office’s contributions and actively participated in the activities. He also led the preparation for normal operations, and the transition to normal operations after the end of commissioning.

He joined the institute in 1995 and served as a European Space Agency astronomer for the first five years. He was an instrument scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), going on to work on the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) during its development. He was part of the team that developed the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and acted as optics lead for that instrument. He was branch lead for all imaging instruments in Hubble and JWST before becoming a JWST project scientist in 2008. Throughout his career, he has continued his research as an astronomer.

Before joining the institute, Dr. Stiavelli was a tenured researcher at Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy, where he taught cosmology and complex dynamical systems courses, and conducted research on the formation of elliptical galaxies and central black holes. Earlier, he was a fellow of the European Southern Observatory, and served as a postdoctoral scientist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where he researched the stability of stellar dynamic models of galaxies. He launched his career as a second lieutenant in the Italian Army.

Dr. Stiavelli has extensive experience in all aspects of modern astronomical research, from theory and observations to data analysis and instrument construction. He has published more than 150 papers, including articles in the Astrophysical Journal, the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, and Nature. He regularly referees papers for Astronomy & Astrophysics, the Astrophysical Journal, and the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. He has been invited to give presentations at many professional events, including a National Research Council study, IAU (International Astronomical Union) Symposia, the Texas/ESO-CERN Symposium, and First Stars Series conferences. He is also active in public outreach. He’s given talks at the institute, schools and museums, and has made multiple appearances at the Baltimore Star Trek convention Shore Leave. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Royal Astronomical Society, and a member of the American Astronomical Society and the IAU.

Education:

PhD in Physics, Scuola Normale Superiore
MS in Physics, Scuola Normale Superiore
BS in Physics, University of Pisa

Research Interests: Central Massive Black Holes, Cosmology, Emission Line Diagnostics at High-z, First Stars and First Black Holes, Galaxy Formation and Evolution, Stellar Dynamics

ORCID ID: 0000-0001-9935-6047

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