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Angioletta Coradini, VIR Team Leader, Co-Investigator, INAF |
David Bates Medal Awarded to VIR Co-Investigator for Mapping Spectrometer
By Ray Brown
Date-line: Vienna Austria, European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2007, April 18, 2007. Dawn Co-Investigator, Dr. Angioletta Coradini, was awarded the prestigious David Bates Medal today by the EGU, European Geosciences Union.
The David Bates Medal was established by the EGU Section on Planetary & Solar System Sciences in honor of Irish mathematician and physicist Sir David Bates. It is awarded for exceptional contributions to planetary and solar system sciences. In particular, it was awarded to Dr. Coradini “in recognition of her important and wide ranging work in planetary sciences and Solar System formation, and her leading role in the development of space infrared instrumentation for planetary exploration”.
Dr. Coradini leads the team responsible for an essential instrument on board the Dawn spacecraft, the Visual and Infrared Imaging Spectrometer, e.g. the VIR.
In her invited David Bates Medal Lecture, Dr. Coradini described the formation of Jupiter and Saturn based largely on results from a three-dimensional computer model. The model accounts for gas in a rotating cloud accreting onto a solid proto-planetary core that orbits a star. Such studies are important because they help determine limits on conditions prevailing during the formation of our Solar System as well as planetary systems forming around other stars.
Her theoretical and observational work is in areas such as: analysis of lunar samples, surfaces of inner planets, thermal evolution of various solar system bodies, and planet formation.
Her wide-ranging publications include some 200 scientific articles and three books. In addition to being the Director of INAF, Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario, Dr. Coradini has held key positions in fielding several space-born spectrometers including those on Rosetta, Venus Express and Dawn.
References:
For Dr. Coradini’s resume see: http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/awards/medallists/_2007/david_bates.html .
For Sir David Bates' biography see http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/egs/bates.htm .
For information about Dawn’s Visual and Infrared Imaging Spectrometer, the VIR see: http://www.ifsi-roma.inaf.it/vir/
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