Valeria Pettorino

 

Main Research Fields

I am a physicist, and I work as Euclid Project Scientist at the European Space Agency (ESA), in ESTEC, Netherlands.

After my PhD (Naples, Italy, 2005), I worked in Torino, Trieste (Italy), Heidelberg (Germany), New York (USA), Geneva (Switzerland), back to Heidelberg as Research Group Leader. I got a permanent position at CEA Paris-Saclay (France) in 2016. I joined ESA in 2023. 

My main expertise is in cosmology, astrophysics and space science, bridging between theory and observations. I have worked for ESA Planck and ESA Euclid space missions, as a scientist and project manager. I have experience in research, science diplomacy, data science, communication, agile management and event organization.

 

Email  •  Personal LinkedIn

Keywords

Dark Energy, Modified Gravity, Cosmology, Space Science, Space Diplomacy. 

Publications

My publications can be found on ORCiD.

Project/mission at ESA

I joined ESA in 2023 as Euclid Project Scientist. 

I have been a member of the Euclid Consortium (former DUNE) since 2007, and, before joining ESA, I contributed to different teams, as a scientist, and a project manager. I was very much involved in the Theory Science Working Group (also as deputy lead). I led a team in charge of forecasting Euclid performance on different theories of the Universe. Later on, I led the Inter Science Taskforce on Likelihood, a team at the interface across different science working groups. Over the years I also volunteered for service tasks related to the organisation of such a large Consortium: Early Career Committee, Builder Committee, Communication, Euclid Prize Committee.

My present responsibilities include:

2023 - Project Scientist for the ESA Euclid space mission. The project scientist is in charge of maximising the scientific outcome of a mission. This implies monitoring operations and their impact on the scientific output of the mission, verify that scientific requirements are met, coordinate the data releases of the mission and make sure that the community can benefit from Euclid data products. 

Other Initiatives

Here are different initiatives I have done over the years. They remind me that there are many interesting things happening beyond my specific field of expertise. I am always curious of people with different competences, challenges and passions.

Science Diplomacy

I am Alumna of the Marie Curie Alumni Association, S4D4C, InsSciDE and GESDA science diplomacy training and networks. In 2024 I was among the 130 scientists and diplomats invited as experts to provide their personal recommendations on the development of a Science Diplomacy framework in Europe. I was part of a Science Diplomacy Working Group with focus on “Strengthening science diplomacy in EU and Member States’ delegations and embassies and fostering the EU’s global science diplomacy outreach.” Each working group was composed of approximately 20 members, roughly half of them coming from the science sphere and half of them from the diplomacy sphere. Results of this activity were published in this report.

Promoting Women Talents, equal opportunities and early career researchers

I have been a founding mentor of the Supernova Foundation since 2015 and organised webinars for it until end of 2023: it’s a worldwide mentoring and networking programme for women in physics, led by Michelle Lochner and by a group of colleagues devoting their time to an initiative which helps women in science of over 50 countries to connect. I left the leading team in 2023 but I still currently volunteer as mentor.

In 2023 I also volunteered as a mentor for Space4Women, an initiative of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs to promote the benefits of space and STEM careers to encourage women and girls to pursue these fields.

From 2020 to 2024 I have been board member and Vice President of DIRE, a network of Italian women in Paris, with different professions: with the board I co-organised events related to science, art, literature, society, music, sport. DIRE aims, among other things, to enhance the role of women, encourage professional and personal exchanges between members, in collaboration with the Italian Consulate in Paris and with other professional associations.

Data Science

I was board member of the EuroPython Society from 2017 to 2019, appointed Fellow in 2021; the program is meant to support applications of python programming language in all fields, within academia and industry. It was a very interesting and motivating experience to join such a diverse and open community of people working in different fields and all interested in python. That experience also gave me the occation to learn how agile management is used in different teams in industry. I also took care of the recruiting session in which job seekers and company representatives could meet and interact.

I am Alumna of Science to Data Science training: I participated to one of their online programmes and joined a team who had to use healthcare data and machine learning alghoritms to trigger alerts to patients wearing portable devices. 

Training

I enjoy training. I have always used it as a way to feel better in difficult times. It allows to learn something and revisit what you thought you had learned. Here is a selection of recent training classes I completed:

• Resistance to change (provided by ESA, April 2025). 
• Preventing harassment (provided by ESA, Dec 2024)
• Tools to challenge unacceptable behaviour - Active Bystander Training (provided by ESA, Feb. 2024)