Violette Impellizzeri

Violette Impellizzeri (born 14 August 1977) is an Italian astronomer and astrophysicist specializing in active galactic nuclei and molecular clouds surrounding supermassive black holes. She is currently a professor at Leiden University, where she conducts research on these phenomena using radio interferometry.

Biography Impellizzeri was born in Saronno, a comune in the Province of Varese, Italy. She completed her primary and secondary education in Alcamo, Sicily, before relocating with her family to Karlsruhe, Germany, where her father worked as a teacher.

She completed her studies at the European School in Karlsruhe, where she obtained her European Baccalaureate.

In 2011, she began working as an astronomer at the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile. In October 2020, she returned to Europe to serve as a program manager with Allegro (ALMA Local Expertise Group) and the European ALMA Regional Center node in the Netherlands, hosted by Leiden Observatory. She currently teaches at Leiden University.

Activity During her doctoral studies at the Max Planck Institute, she mainly focused on active galactic nuclei on Radio Astronomy. As part of her research, she conducted a series of observations using the Effelsberg 100-m Radio Telescope to detect water masers in distant galaxies. Her discoveries were later confirmed by observations made with the Very Large Array Radio Telescope in New Mexico, operated by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

In 2007, while at the University of Virginia, Impellizzeri was recruited by a cosmological research initiative, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, to contribute to the Megamaser Cosmology Project. She coordinated research efforts at the Green Bank Telescope in Virginia, integrating these with observations made using the Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) system. She continued to work with the VLBI system at the ALMA in Chile, where she was involved in testing and served as a liaison for VLBI activities. and published a paper in Nature on the discovery of the most ancient water in the universe. 11 August 2018: Awarded the Tablet Paul Harris Fellow by Rotary Clubs for her contributions to the diffusion of Italian culture. 18 April 2019: Awarded a medal by the Chilean government, as official recognition for her work done in the exploration of black holes. 12 August 2019: Received a Tablet from the Mayor of Alcamo in recognition of her work in scientific research. 5 September 2019: Together with the other astrophysicists who took the first image of a black hole, Impellizzeri was awarded the Breakthrough Prize (2020). 11 August 2021: Annual Prize of the Kiwanis Club of Alcamo, with the following remark: “To Violette Impellizzeri, an astronomer with international fame, for her dedication to the study of the mysteries of the universe and the safeguarding of the environment”. 28 November 2022: KHMW Outreach Award for her project ALMA for Leiden.