Viviana Acquaviva (born June 5, 1979) is an Italian astrophysicist who is a professor in the Department of Physics at the New York City College of Technology. Her research interests consider data science and machine learning for physics and astronomy. She was named one of Italy's most inspirational technologists in 2019.[1]

Viviana Acquaviva
Born (1979-06-05) June 5, 1979 (age 44)
Alma materUniversity of Pisa
International School for Advanced Studies
Scientific career
InstitutionsNew York City College of Technology
Princeton University
Rutgers University
ThesisPerturbazioni cosmologiche al secondo ordine nello scenario inflazionario (2002)
WebsiteViviana Acquaviva

Early life and education edit

Acquaviva studied physics at the University of Pisa, where she studied second order cosmological perturbations for her master thesis under the supervision of Sabino Matarrese and Paolo Paolicchi.[2][3] She then moved to the International School for Advanced Studies for her PhD. She was a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University and Rutgers University. Her research looked at dark energy, modified models of gravity. She also she trained in statistics and analysed cosmic microwave background data.[citation needed]

Research and career edit

Acquaviva joined the faculty of City University of New York.[4] Her research considers the development of computational tools to determine information about galaxy properties, including star formation history, the attenuation of dust and stellar mass.[5][6] She created GalMC, a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm, that could be used to infer age, metallicity and star formation rate from spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting.[5] She was part of Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS).[7] She has shown that machine learning models can be used to understand the relationship between galaxy spectra and the histories of their star formation.[8]

Acquaviva seeks to improve diversity within the astrophysics community.[9][10] She has led training programs for people from groups historically marginalized from astrophysics, including people in correctional facilities.[11]

Awards and honors edit

Selected publications edit

  • Viviana Acquaviva; Nicola Bartolo; Sabino Matarrese; Antonio Riotto (September 2003). "Gauge-invariant second-order perturbations and non-Gaussianity from inflation". Nuclear Physics B. 667 (1–2): 119–148. arXiv:astro-ph/0209156. Bibcode:2003NuPhB.667..119A. doi:10.1016/S0550-3213(03)00550-9. ISSN 1873-1562. Zbl 1038.83046. Wikidata Q60872164.
  • J. Dunkley; R. Hlozek; J. Sievers; et al. (6 September 2011). "The Atacama cosmology telescope: cosmological parameters from the 2008 power spectrum". The Astrophysical Journal. 739 (1): 52. arXiv:1009.0866. Bibcode:2011ApJ...739...52D. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/739/1/52. ISSN 0004-637X. Wikidata Q58919278.
  • Tobias A. Marriage; Viviana Acquaviva; Peter A. R. Ade; et al. (4 August 2011). "The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Sunyaev-Zel'dovich-selected galaxy clusters at 148 GHz in the 2008 survey". The Astrophysical Journal. 737 (2): 61. arXiv:1010.1065. Bibcode:2011ApJ...737...61M. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/737/2/61. ISSN 0004-637X. Wikidata Q58919272.

References edit

  1. ^ Marino, Francesco (2021-09-06). "Le donne italiane più influenti nel digitale e nell'innovazione: Digiwomen 2021". Digitalic (in Italian). Retrieved 2022-08-31.
  2. ^ Acquaviva, Viviana (2002). Perturbazioni cosmologiche al secondo ordine nello scenario inflazionario : tesi di laurea. OCLC 886794946.
  3. ^ "Faculty Profile". www.citytech.cuny.edu. Retrieved 2022-08-31.
  4. ^ Unknown (2014-03-20). "CANDELS: Astronomer of the Month: Viviana Acquaviva". CANDELS. Retrieved 2022-08-31.
  5. ^ a b Acquaviva, Viviana; Gawiser, Eric; Guaita, Lucia (2011-07-28). "SPECTRAL ENERGY DISTRIBUTION FITTING WITH MARKOV CHAIN MONTE CARLO: METHODOLOGY AND APPLICATION TOz= 3.1 Lyα-EMITTING GALAXIES". The Astrophysical Journal. 737 (2): 47. arXiv:1101.2215. Bibcode:2011ApJ...737...47A. doi:10.1088/0004-637x/737/2/47. ISSN 0004-637X. S2CID 118691411.
  6. ^ "data-science". datascience.sissa.it. Retrieved 2022-08-31.
  7. ^ Grogin, Norman A.; Kocevski, Dale D.; Faber, S. M.; Ferguson, Henry C.; Koekemoer, Anton M.; Riess, Adam G.; Acquaviva, Viviana; Alexander, David M.; Almaini, Omar; Ashby, Matthew L. N.; Barden, Marco; Bell, Eric F.; Bournaud, Frederic; Brown, Thomas M.; Caputi, Karina I. (2011). "CANDELS: the cosmic assembly near-infrared deep extragalactic legacy". Astrophysical Journal Supplement. 197 (2): 35. doi:10.1088/0067-0049/197/2/35. hdl:1854/LU-8575196. ISSN 0067-0049.
  8. ^ Lovell, Christopher C.; Acquaviva, Viviana; Thomas, Peter A.; Iyer, Kartheik G.; Gawiser, Eric; Wilkins, Stephen M. (2019-12-21). "Learning the Relationship between Galaxies Spectra and their Star Formation Histories using Convolutional Neural Networks and Cosmological Simulations". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 490 (4): 5503–5520. arXiv:1903.10457. doi:10.1093/mnras/stz2851. ISSN 0035-8711.
  9. ^ "Viviana Acquaviva". Simons Foundation. 2021-02-01. Retrieved 2022-08-31.
  10. ^ Guglielmo, Valentina (2020-12-08). ""Questa è la mia visione del fisico moderno"". MEDIA INAF (in Italian). Retrieved 2022-08-31.
  11. ^ "Viviana Acquaviva". Inspiring Fifty: Italy. Retrieved 2022-08-31.
  12. ^ "City Tech Professor Receives CUNY Feliks Gross Award". CUNY Newswire. Retrieved 2022-08-31.
  13. ^ "Italy 2018". Inspiring Fifty: Italy. Archived from the original on 2020-10-21. Retrieved 2022-08-31.
  14. ^ "50 donne che hanno fatto (e fanno) la storia dell'informatica". Wired Italia (in Italian). 2020-11-23. Retrieved 2022-08-31.
  15. ^ "The Harlow Shapley Visiting Lecturers | American Astronomical Society". aas.org. Retrieved 2022-08-31.
  16. ^ hk3m5tk8 (2021-06-10). "Premio internazionale Le Tecnovisionarie® 2021: annunciate le 13 vincitrici". Tecnovisionarie® (in Italian). Retrieved 2022-08-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)