Fabienne Casoli (born 1959) is a French astronomer and academic administrator, the president of the Paris Observatory.
Casoli was born in 1959. After study at the École normale supérieure de jeunes filles and earning an agrégation in physics, [1] she completed a Ph.D. in astrophysics with the dissertation Nuages moléculaires, formation d'étoiles et structure spirale on molecular clouds and star formation, directed by Françoise Combes at Paris Diderot University. [2]
She became a director of research for the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), and successively the scientific director of the Institute of Science of the Universe (INSU), director of the Institut d'astrophysique spatiale (IAS), deputy director and head of science for the CNES (National Centre for Space Studies). She was elected president of the Paris Observatory for 2020–2025. She became the first woman to head the observatory since its founding in 1667. [1]
Casoli was named a chevalier in the Ordre national du Mérite in 2010, and an officier in 2023. [3]
Casoli is an author or editor of books on astronomy including:
Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier was a French astronomer and mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics and is best known for predicting the existence and position of Neptune using only mathematics.
The Paris Observatory, a research institution of the Paris Sciences et Lettres University, is the foremost astronomical observatory of France, and one of the largest astronomical centers in the world. Its historic building is on the Left Bank of the Seine in central Paris, but most of the staff work on a satellite campus in Meudon, a suburb southwest of Paris.
Michel Gustave Édouard Mayor is a Swiss astrophysicist and professor emeritus at the University of Geneva's Department of Astronomy. He formally retired in 2007, but remains active as a researcher at the Observatory of Geneva. He is co-laureate of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics along with Jim Peebles and Didier Queloz, and the winner of the 2010 Viktor Ambartsumian International Prize and the 2015 Kyoto Prize.
George Wetherill was a physicist and geologist and the director emeritus of the department of terrestrial magnetism at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, DC, US.
Catherine Jeanne Cesarsky is an Argentine and French astronomer, known for her research activities in astrophysics and for her leadership in astronomy and atomic energy. She is the current chairperson of the Square Kilometre Array's governing body, SKAO Council. She was the first female president of the International Astronomical Union (2006-2009) and the first female director general of the European Southern Observatory (1999-2007).
University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines is a French public university created in 1991, located in the department of Yvelines and, since 2002, in Hauts-de-Seine. It is a constituent university of the federal Paris-Saclay University.
Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A) is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering theoretical, observational, and instrumental astronomy and astrophysics. It is operated by an editorial team under the supervision of a board of directors representing 27 sponsoring countries plus a representative of the European Southern Observatory. The journal is published by EDP Sciences and the current editors-in-chief are Thierry Forveille and João Alves.
The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia is an astronomy website, founded in Paris, France at the Meudon Observatory by Jean Schneider in February 1995, which maintains a database of all the currently known and candidate extrasolar planets, with individual pages for each planet and a full list interactive catalog spreadsheet. The main catalogue comprises databases of all of the currently confirmed extrasolar planets as well as a database of unconfirmed planet detections. The databases are frequently updated with new data from peer-reviewed publications and conferences.
Françoise Combes is a French astrophysicist at the Paris Observatory and a professor at the Collège de France where she has been the chair of Galaxies and cosmology since 2014.
The Prix Jules Janssen is the highest award of the Société astronomique de France (SAF), the French astronomical society.
Maria Antonella Barucci is an Italian astronomer at the Observatory-Meudon, Paris. She is credited by the Minor Planet Center with a total of 3 minor planet discoveries she made in 1984 and 1985. Most notably is her joint discovery with R. Scott Dunbar of the near-Earth and Aten asteroid 3362 Khufu at Palomar Observatory, as well as her co-discovery of the Apollo asteroid 3752 Camillo.
Athena Coustenis is an astrophysicist specializing in planetology. Dr. Coustenis, a French national, is director of research, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, at LESIA, at the Paris Observatory, Meudon. She is involved in several space mission projects for the European Space Agency (ESA) and for NASA. Her focus is on gas giant planets Saturn, Jupiter and their moons, and she is considered a foremost expert on Saturn's moon Titan.
Giovanna Tinetti is an Italian physicist based in London. She is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at University College London, who researches galactic planetary science, exoplanets and atmospheric science.
Anne-Marie Lagrange, born March 12, 1962 in the Rhône-Alpes region of France, is a French astrophysicist. Lagrange's work focuses on the research and study of extrasolar planetary systems. Lagrange is the holder of numerous scientific awards and honorary decorations, including Knight of the Legion of Honour and is a member of the French Academy of Sciences since 2013.
Mioara Mandea is Head "Science Coordination" Department, Strategy Directorate at the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales. Mioara Mandea’s research has had a broader significance and a huge impact in the community. One of her accomplishments of incalculable importance is the assembling of the geomagnetic time series at Paris, opening the path to other long magnetic series as Munich and Bucharest and dedicated studies. Over her entire career, she has been focused on the geomagnetic field and its variations, using data derived from magnetic observatories and satellites participating in elaborating useful models, such as the IGRF series. With GRACEFUL, a Synergy project of the European Research Council in the framework of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Mioara Mandea continues her precursory work related to the dynamical processes in Earth's fluid core seen by both magnetic and gravity variations.
HIP 65426 b, formally named Najsakopajk, is a super-Jupiter exoplanet orbiting the star HIP 65426. It was discovered on 6 July 2017 by the SPHERE consortium using the Spectro-Polarimetric High-Contrast Exoplanet Research (SPHERE) instrument belonging to the European Southern Observatory (ESO), being the first planet discovered by the SPHERE instrument. It is 385 light-years from Earth in the Centaurus constellation.
Pierre Encrenaz is a French astronomer who is a professor at the Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie. He was also head of the École doctorale d'Astronomie et d'Astrophysique d'Île-de-France.
Françoise Vimeux is a French climatologist. She is Director of Scientific Research at the Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD), works at the Laboratoire des sciences du climat et de l'environnement (LSCE) and at the Laboratoire HydroSciences Montpellier (HSM).
Thérèse Encrenaz is a French planetary scientist who "played a leading role in the development of planetology in Europe". Her research concerns extraterrestrial atmospheres, particularly of the planets and comets in the Solar System. She is a research director for the CNRS, emeritus, affiliated with the Paris Observatory.