Maria Lugaro

Maria Lugaro is an Italian astrophysicist who is a researcher at the Konkoly Observatory of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Her research considers nuclear radioactivity in the solar system and asymptotic giant branch stars.

Early life and education Lugaro was born in Turin. At high school, she specialised in classics, including Greek and Latin. She was an undergraduate student in theoretical physics at the University of Turin. During her undergraduate studies, she worked on slow neutron captures. She was supported by the Australian Government to complete her doctorate at Monash University. Her research considered nucleosynthesis in asymptotic giant branch stars.

Research and career Lugaro worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Notre Dame and University of Cambridge. She moved to Utrecht University as a Dutch Research Council VENI Fellow. In 2008, she returned to Australia, where she was made an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer at Monash University. She used radioactive dating to understand the age of meteorites. She moved to Konkoly Observatory at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2014. Lugaro believes that it will be possible to uncover the history of the Solar System by examining the origin of these radioactive nuclei. She has studied neutron stars, and showed that their collisions can result in supernova that collapse whilst spinning, generating strong magnetic fields and super heavy elements.

Selected publications

Personal life Lugaro has four sons, including a set of twins.