I am an ESO staff astronomer at Paranal, originally from Iran/Armenia, although I have spent most of my adult life in the UK and Germany.  I studied natural sciences at Cambridge University, and then worked in investment banking for a few years, both in London and Frankfurt. I then moved back to science and obtained my Masters and PhD in Berlin, Germany.

On Paranal, I am responsible for the FORS2 and ESPRESSO instruments, as well as being involved with the development of the ANDES spectrograph for the ELT. My scientific interests are detection and characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres, as well as testing planet formation theories. I speak English, Spanish and Persian, as well as some German and Armenian. When not busy with Paranal or science or my dog, I like to either go up the mountains for skiing or head to the coast for some surfing, which makes Santiago the ideal place to live. I look forward to showing you the observational aspects of exoplanetary science.

I am a member of the faculty at the Universidad Diego Portales and a previous ESO fellow with duties at Paranal. My research focusses on understanding the evolution of galaxies and the transformation of their morphologies through the star formation of their different components, such as their bulges and discs. For this work I use IFU data from MUSE and the SDSS MaNGA survey, and more recently I am extending my work to the Milky Way with the SDSS Local Volume Mapper (an IFU survey of the entire Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds), for which I am currently leading the commissioning of the new telescope and instrument.

In my free time I like to relax and learn crochet, but for now my free time is mainly taken up chasing after my toddler as he explores the world.

I am an ESO fellow with duties in Paranal. I come from Italy, where I completed my Masters in Astronomy, and I moved to Santiago de Chile for my PhD in 2019.

For my research, I use high-resolution optical and near-infrared spectroscopy to chemically characterize stars in the Milky Way and Local Group galaxies, to investigate the Galactic archeology. Outside astronomy, I have a variety of interests: I love traveling and, in my leisure time, you can find me playing the piano, drawing, reading, or baking cakes.

I'm an ESO staff astronomer with duties on Paranal, where I'm the instrument scientist for the UVES spectrograph, as well as part of the Quality Control group, and (future) instrument scientist for the upcoming CUBES ultraviolet high resolution spectrograph. I have studied in Padova and Rome, where I got my PhD, two years of which were spent as an ESO student in Santiago. I have then worked in France, Germany and finally in Chile. My scientific interests are the chemical analysis of cool stars and the modelization of stellar atmospheres, with particular interests in the chemical characterization of dwarf galaxies of the Local Group, the analysis of extremely metal poor stars and the study of Lithium abundances in metal poor stars. 

Outside Astronomy, I'm an avid photographer, and I enjoy birdwatching, traveling, reading, cooking, and music. I'm also a bit obsessed with fountain pens and inks.

I'm an ESO staff astronomer working at Paranal where I am instrument scientist for ERIS, a combined near-infrared imager and integral field spectrograph that was recently commissioned on UT4. My main research focus is in the use of high-angular resolution observing techniques to detect and characterize companions to nearby stars, primarily substellar companions that lie below the hydrogen burning limit. I'm also interested in the synergy between this direct detection technique and other indirect techniques such as radial velocity and astrometry.

In my free time I relax by playing video games, both single-player and with (and against) my friends in multi-player. I also really enjoy watching and reading about history, recent and contemporary politics, and, of course, science fiction.