José Gabriel Funes

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Fr. José Gabriel Funes, S.J. (born January 31, 1963 in Córdoba), an Argentine Jesuit priest and astronomer, is the current director of the Vatican Observatory. He has a master´s degree in Astronomy from the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in Argentina and a doctorate from the University of Padua in Italy. He has also a bachelor's degree in philosophy from University del Salvador in Argentina and a bachelor's degree in theology from Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. A member of the Society of Jesus, he was ordained a priest in 1995. He joined the Vatican Observatory as a researcher in 2000, and was named its director on August 19, 2006 replacing Fr. George Coyne.