Interview with Prof. Dr. Serena Viti, designated Hertz-Chair for Astrochemistry
- Tracking down the mystery of matter! Please be so kind to describe your research activity in 3 sentences!
- My research interests lie within the field of astrochemistry, with emphasis on the use of chemical and dynamical models to study the nature of the interstellar medium, and star forming regions. At the center of my research are "space" molecules: I observe and study molecules in space, from protoplanetary disks to high redshift galaxies. I am interested in how molecular complexity in space comes to be as well as how we can use molecules to study the physics, chemistry and dynamics of the Universe.
- Perspectives of transdisciplinary research! How do you see your own research in this regard?
- My research is very interdisciplinary, being at the intercept of Astronomy, Chemistry and Physics. More recently, our work has also benefited from the great advances in machine learning. Key to my research is determining how large (for astronomers!) molecules exist in space and this problem can only be tackled by a comprehensive effort involving astronomers, experimental and theoretical chemists, and data scientists.
- Chat out of the box: Which famous/historical person would you like to meet for coffee and which topic(s) would you bring up?
- If I am allowed to go back as far as ~200 BC, I would like to meet Archimedes. As a child, I was fascinated by the fact that he was an inventor, and as I grew up, I appreciated more and more how multi-disciplinary he was (he was a mathematician, inventor, physicist, engineer and astronomer!). Over coffee, I would bring up the topic of gravity. I am curious to know what his intuition about gravity was.
Press release
The Chemistry of Outer Space
Astrochemist Professor Serena Viti appointed designated Hertz Professor at the University of Bonn