Violette Impellizzeri

Violette Impellizzeri was born in Saronno, a comune in the Province of Varese. She attended primary and secondary school in Alcamo, Sicily. Her family then moved to Karlsruhe, Germany where her father worked as a teacher.

She earned her European baccalaureate at the European School of Karlsruhe. In 1995, she entered the University of Bristol. She obtained a master's degree in Physics and later attained a doctorate in astrophysics at the Max Planck Institute für Radioastronomie in Bonn. Impellizzeri was a postdoctoral researcher in at the University of Virginia[2] and worked for three years at the NRAO (National Radio Astronomy Observatory) researching physical cosmology and the megamaser (MCP).

Since 2011, she has worked at ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter Array) in Chile as an astronomer. In October 2020, she moved back to Europe to work as a program manager with Allegro (ALMA Local Expertise Group) and the European ALMA Regional Center (ARC) node in the Netherlands, hosted by Leiden Observatory. She currently teaches at Leiden University.[3]

During Impellizzeri's work on Active Galactic Nuclei, as a part of her doctorate at Bonn University, she projected a series of observations with the scope of detecting water masers (Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) in distant galaxies. The project was carried on by using the Effelsberg 100-m Radio Telescope. The research was successful and the discovery has been confirmed by the Very Large Array Radio Telescope of New Mexico (NRAO). Additionally, the Electromagnetic wave of maser found a random and fortuitous alignment with a body of large mass (a massive galaxy) which behaved like a gravitational lens, enabling the focalization and magnification of the signal (and then making it visible). By considering the speed of light, she discovered that these water molecules had been produced eleven billion years before. This discovery was published in the journal Nature[4] and was reported in the international press. The discovery has relevance for the studies on the theories of the expansion of the universe, and especially, on the calculation of the Hubble constant which measures the relationship between distance and speed of celestial bodies (galaxies).[5]

While at the University of Virginia, Impellizzeri was recruited by the NRAO in 2007 to work on the cosmology project of MCP (Megamaser Cosmology Project). She coordinated the research at the Green Bank Telescope in Virginia with the observations made with the VLBI (Very Long Baseline Observatory). After three years of dedicated work, she remained a collaborator in the project over the subsequent ten years.[5]

Impellizzeri joined the Atacama Cosmology Telescope project - the largest radio telescope in the world at the 5 km altitude, - as a NRAO astronomer tasked with the integration of the VLBI observations within Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) (under the title of friend of VLBI).[6] She participated in data integration with other remote telescopes, where a distance of, say, 10,000 kilometers can be leveraged as if the observations were made by one giant telescope[7] with a 10,000 km diameter. 10 years of observations at ALMA have been fruitful for astronomy.

In 2017, observations commenced at the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) hoping to realize the first image of a black hole, previously only considered theoretically. First direct proof of their existence (in contrast to Andrea Ghez's 2020 Nobel prize, Stefan Gillessen and others) was accomplished by publishing the photograph of the black hole in the center of the galaxy Messier 87 at a distance of 56 million light years; this black hole has a mass of 6.5 billion solar masses.[6] The telescopes contributing to this result were ALMA, Apex, the 30 meters IRAM of Grenoble, the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, the Alfonso Serrano telescope, the Submillimeter Array telescope, the Submillimeter Telescope, and the South Pole Telescope.[7]

• Earned the title of Woman of Stars and a publication on Nature (journal) for the discovery of the most ancient water in the universe;
• 11 August 2018: Assigned the Tablet Paul Harris Fellow (the greatest acknowledgment of Rotary Clubs) for the diffusion of Italian culture;
• 18 April 2019: the Chilean government awarded the astronomer with a medal, as official recognition for the work done in the exploration of the Black hole.
• 12 August 2019: A Tablet is given by the Mayor of Alcamo for her prestigious career in the field of scientific research.
• 2020: Together with the other Astrophysicists who realized the photo of the Black hole, she was awarded with the prestigious Breakthrough Prize (2020).[8]
• 11 August 2021: Yearly Prize by the Kiwanis club of Alcamo, with the following motivation: To Violette Impellizzeri, astronomer with an international fame, for her dedication for the study of the mysteries of universe and for the safeguard of environment.
• 28 November 2022: KHMW Outreach Award for her project ALMA for Leiden.

• Atacama Large Millimeter Array
• Breakthrough Prize
• Leiden University

• "Violette, la donna delle stelle venuta da Alcamo". 15 February 2015. Retrieved 16 November 2016.
• "Scienziata alcamese, in Olanda, a capo di gruppo di astronomi". 6 May 2021. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
• "Violette Impellizzeri, l'astronoma cacciatrice del buco nero sognato da bambina". 19 April 2019. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
• "Astrofisica? Può essere semplice. Violette Impellizzeri lo sa". 16 October 2016. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
• "Allegro, the European ALMA Regional Center node in the Netherlands". Retrieved 6 June 2021.
• "About us". Retrieved 6 June 2021.
• "Violette Impellizzeri Program Manager Allegro". Retrieved 6 June 2021.
• "L'astronoma siciliana che in Cile svela i segreti delle antiche galassie". 10 December 2014. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
• "Black Hole Imaged For First Time By Event Horizon Telescope". 15 April 2017. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
• "La scienziata alcamese Violette Impellizzeri premiata dal governo del Cile". 19 April 2019. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
• "First image of black hole released in Chile". Archived from the original on 12 April 2019. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
• "Winners Of The 2020 Breakthrough Prize In Life Sciences, Fundamental Physics And Mathematics Announced". Retrieved 6 June 2021.
• "Alcamo, Premio dell'anno kiwaniano. A Violette Impellizzeri prestigioso riconoscimento". 12 August 2021. Retrieved 12 August 2021.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Violette Impellizzeri.

• "Alcamo, l'astronoma Violette Impellizzeri in videoconferenza dal Cile". YouTube. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
• "Dr. Violette Impellizzeri". 30 June 2016. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
• "Observatorio ALMA". Facebook. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
• "Astronomers Capture the First Image of a Black Hole". Retrieved 6 June 2021.
• "KHMW Outreach Award". 5 December 2022. Retrieved 14 December 2022.