Paolo Giommi

Short CV

Paolo Giommi is a senior scientist working at the Italian Space Agency (ASI). After graduating in physics at the state university of Milan, Italy, he joined the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (Cambridge, MA, USA) as an ESA research fellow in 1980. His work focused on X-ray data from the “Einstein Observatory” to study QSOs, BL Lacertae objects and X-ray surveys. In 1982 Paolo Giommi then joined the ESA as a member of the EXOSAT Observatory team at ESA-ESOC in Darmstadt, Germany. There he spent over four years as a Duty Scientist, deeply involved in the scientific operations of the EXOSAT satellite and in the construction of the EXOSAT results database, which constitutes one of the first astronomical archives to become available on the web. In Darmstadt, Paolo Giommi continued his research in the area of extragalactic X-ray astronomy and headed the data analysis and follow up observations program of the EXOSAT High Galactic Latitude Survey. After that, he moved to ESA-ESTEC, Noordwijk, where he had a key role in the development of the EXOSAT online archive and in the construction of several multi-mission X-ray data analysis software packages (e.g. XIMAGE, BROWSE). In 1991 he became part of the European Space Information System (ESIS) team at ESA-ESRIN in Frascati, Italy as an ESIS Senior Scientist and collaborated with diverse international teams in archival research (especially with the NASA/HEASARC group). Four years later, Paolo Giommi joined the BeppoSAX team as the manager of the BeppoSAX Science Data Center in Rome. In the period from 2000 to 2016 he was director of the ASI Science Data Center (ASDC); between 2007 and 2009 also holding the position of Italian Lead Scientist of the Simbol-X formation flying hard-X-ray mission.

He currently acts as a senior scientist of the ASI Space Science Data Center (SSDC) and is a senior member of the International Relations unit of ASI, where he coordinates the China-Italy Moon Mapping project, the China-Italy laboratory for space science and technology and is the team leader for the United Nations "Open Universe" initiative. At present, Paolo Giommi is also an adjunct professor at the International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics Network (ICRANet), a member of the faculty of the International Relativistic Astrophysics (IRAP) PhD program, and a Hans Fisher senior fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study of TUM.

Selected Awards

• 2014-2016, Thomson Reuters list of top 1% Highly Cited researchers
• 1998, 2007, 2011, 2012, Bruno Rossi Prize as a key player of the BeppoSAX, Swift, Fermi and AGILE teams

Research Area

Paolo Giommi’s scientific activities are mostly centered in the field of extragalactic astrophysics. His further research interests include multi-frequency multi-messenger studies of blazars as well as Gamma-ray bursts and cosmology.

Selected Publications

• Giommi, P.; Arrigo, G.; Barres de Almeida, U.; de Angelis, M.; del Rio Vera, J.; di Ciaccio, S.; di Pippo, S.; Iacovoni, S.; Pollock, A.M.T.: The Open Universe Initiative. ESPI-UNISPACE+50, 2018.

• Padovani, P.; Alexander, D. M.; Assef, R. J.; De Marco, B.; Giommi, P.; Hickox, R. C.; Richards, G. T.; Smolčić, V.; Hatziminaoglou, E.; Mainieri, V.; Salvato, M.: Active galactic nuclei: what’s in a name? The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review 25 (1), 2017.

• Padovani, P.; Resconi, E.; Giommi, P.; Arsioli, B.; Chang, Y. L.: Extreme blazars as counterparts of IceCube astrophysical neutrinos. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 457 (4), 2016, 3582-3592.

• Padovani, P.; Petropoulou, M.; Giommi, P.; Resconi, E.: A simplified view of blazars: the neutrino background. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 452 (2), 2015, 1877-1887.

• Giommi, P.; Polenta, G.; Lähteenmäki, A.; Thompson, D. J.; Capalbi, M.; Cutini, S.; Gasparrini, D.; González-Nuevo, J.; León-Tavares, J.; López-Caniego, M.; Mazziotta, M. N.; Monte, C.; Perri, M.; Rainò, S.; Tosti, G.; Tramacere, A.; Verrecchia, F.; Aller, H. D.; Aller, M. F.; Angelakis, E.; Bastieri, D.; Berdyugin, A.; Bonaldi, A.; Bonavera, L.; Burigana, C.; Burrows, D. N.; Buson, S.; Cavazzuti, E.; Chincarini, G.; Colafrancesco, S.; Costamante, L.; Cuttaia, F.; D’Ammando, F.; de Zotti, G.; Frailis, M.; Fuhrmann, L.; Galeotta, S.; Gargano, F.; Gehrels, N.; Giglietto, N.; Giordano, F.; Giroletti, M.; Keihänen, E.; King, O.; Krichbaum, T. P.; Lasenby, A.; Lavonen, N.; Lawrence, C. R.; Leto, C.; Lindfors, E. et al.: SimultaneousPlanck,Swift, andFermiobservations of X-ray andγ-ray selected blazars. Astronomy & Astrophysics 541, 2012, A160.

• Giommi, P.; Padovani, P.; Polenta, G.; Turriziani, S.; D’Elia, V.; Piranomonte, S.: A simplified view of blazars: clearing the fog around long-standing selection effects. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 420 (4), 2012, 2899-2911.

• Abdo, A. A.; Ackermann, M.; Agudo, I.; Ajello, M.; Aller, H. D.; Aller, M. F.; Angelakis, E.; Arkharov, A. A.; Axelsson, M.; Bach, U.; Baldini, L.; Ballet, J.; Barbiellini, G.; Bastieri, D.; Baughman, B. M.; Bechtol, K.; Bellazzini, R.; Benitez, E.; Berdyugin, A.; Berenji, B.; Blandford, R. D.; Bloom, E. D.; Boettcher, M.; Bonamente, E.; Borgland, A. W.; Bregeon, J.; Brez, A.; Brigida, M.; Bruel, P.; Burnett, T. H.; Burrows, D.; Buson, S.; Caliandro, G. A.; Calzoletti, L.; Cameron, R. A.; Capalbi, M.; Caraveo, P. A.; Carosati, D.; Casandjian, J. M.; Cavazzuti, E.; Cecchi, C.; Çelik, Ö.; Charles, E.; Chaty, S.; Chekhtman, A.; Chen, W. P.; Chiang, J.; Chincarini, G.; Ciprini, S.; Claus, R. et al.: THE SPECTRAL ENERGY DISTRIBUTION OFFERMIBRIGHT BLAZARS. The Astrophysical Journal 716 (1), 2010, 30-70.

• Tramacere, A.; Giommi, P.; Perri, M.; Verrecchia, F.; Tosti, G.: Swift observations of the very intense flaring activity of Mrk 421 during 2006. I. Phenomenological picture of electron acceleration and predictions for MeV/GeV emission. Astronomy & Astrophysics 501 (3), 2009, 879-898.

• Padovani, Paolo; Giommi, Paolo: The connection between x-ray- and radio-selected BL Lacertae objects. The Astrophysical Journal 444, 1995, 567.