Michel Mayor
Professor Michel Mayor is an astrophysicist at Geneva University (Switzerland). Together with Didier Queloz, in 1995 he discovered the first extrasolar planet, named 51 Pegasi b, orbiting the sunlike star 51 Pegasi. Professor Mayor was awarded the Swiss Marcel Benoist Prize in recognition of his work and its significance for human life. In 2000 he was […]
Sabina Leonelli
Sabina Leonelli holds the Chair of Philosophy and History of Science and Technology at the Technical University of Munich, where she is also Research Director of the Ethical Data Initiative, Co-Director of the Public Science Lab, lead of the ERC Project PHIL_OS and PI of the Munich Centre for Transformative Technologies and Societal Change. Her […]
Garik Israelian
Dr Israelian, an astrophysicist at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (Spain), is the creative director and spiritual father of the STARMUS Festival. In 1999 he led a collaboration reported in the journal Nature that found the first observational evidence that supernova explosions are responsible for the formation of black holes. His research has led […]
Michela Massimi
Michela Massimi is a Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Edinburgh. She is Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Royal Astronomical Society, the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, and elected member of the Academia Europaea. Professor Massimi has written extensively on a variety of philosophical topics surrounding scientific practice, from […]
Costanza Bonadonna
Costanza Bonadonna is a Full Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Geneva and Head of the CERG-C Program for the Assessment and Management of Geological and Climate-Related Risks (CERG-C Program). She currently serves as Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Geneva, President of the International Association […]
Alex LeBrun
Alex LeBrun is the CEO of AMI Labs, a foundational world models company he co-founded with Yann LeCun. Before AI was a buzzword, he was already building it — founding VirtuOz, one of the earliest conversational AI companies (acquired by Nuance/Microsoft), then Wit.ai (acquired by Meta), laying infrastructure that now powers billions of interactions. He also co-founded […]
Pietro Barabaschi
Pietro Barabaschi is a Director-General of ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor). ITER is the world’s largest fusion experiment. Thirty-five nations are collaborating to build and operate the ITER Tokamak, the most complex machine ever constructed by humans. Pietro Barabaschi has been working since 2009 in Fusion for Energy (F4E), the European Union organisation responsible for […]
Jannicke Mikkelsen
Jannicke Mikkelsen didn’t grow up thinking she would go to space. She carved that path herself—one bold decision at a time. From the icy wilderness of the Arctic to the vacuum of space, she has redefined what’s possible in both science and storytelling. In 2024, she became the first Norwegian in space and the world’s […]
Nick Lane
Nick Lane is a British biochemist and writer. He works as a researcher and lecturer in evolutionary biochemistry at University College London. He has published four books which have won several awards. Educated at Imperial College, London, he earned his PhD at the Royal Free Hospital Medical School in 1995 with a thesis entitled In vivo studies […]
Xavier Barcons
Xavier Barcons, ESO Director General since 1 September 2017, was born in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Catalonia, Spain in 1959. He received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in physical sciences from the University of Barcelona in 1981. He was awarded a PhD in statistical physics in 1985 from the University of Cantabria, Spain. Barcons began his academic […]
