Fulvio Melia
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| Fulvio Melia | |
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| Born | 2 August 1956 Gorizia, Italy |
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| Residence |  United States |
| Nationality | American Italian |
| Fields | Physicist Astrophysicist |
| Institutions | University of Arizona |
| Alma mater | Melbourne University Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Doctoral advisor | Paul Joss and Saul Rappaport |
| Doctoral students | Marco Fatuzzo Ranjeev Misra Peter Tamblyn Marcus Boyd Jack Hall Sergei Nayakshin Robert Coker Sera Markoff Michael Fromerth Siming Liu Gabriel Rockefeller Brandon Wolfe |
| Known for | High Energy Astronomy, supermassive black holes |
| Notable awards | Presidential Young Investigator Award (from President Ronald Reagan) (1988), Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellow (1989), Sir Thomas Lyle Fellow (1998), Miegunyah Fellow (1999), Erskine Fellow (2007) |
Fulvio Melia (born 2 August 1956) is an Italian-American physicist/astrophysicist and author. He is Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Arizona and Associate Editor of the Astrophysical Journal Letters. A former Presidential Young Investigator and Sloan Research Fellow, he is the author of six books and more than 230 articles on theoretical astrophysics.
[edit] Career
Melia was educated at Melbourne University and The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and held a post-doctoral research position at the University of Chicago before taking an assistant professorship at Northwestern University in 1987. Moving to the University of Arizona as an associate professor in 1991, he became a full professor in 1993. From 1988 to 1995, he was a Presidential Young Investigator (under President Ronald Reagan), and then an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow from 1989 to 1992. He became a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2002. He is also a Professorial Fellow in the School of Physics, Melbourne University.
From 1996 to 2002, he was a Scientific Editor with the Astrophysical Journal, and since then has been an Associate Editor with the Astrophysical Journal Letters. He is also the Chief Editor of the Theoretical Astrophysics series of books at the University of Chicago Press.
In a career that has seen him publish over 230 research papers and several books, Melia has made important contributions in High Energy Astronomy and the physics of supermassive black holes. He is especially known for his work on the Galactic center, particularly developing a theoretical understanding of the central supermassive black hole, known as Sagittarius A*. With his students and collaborators, he was the first to propose imaging this object with millimeter-interferometry, which should be feasible within a few years, proving beyond any doubt that it possesses an event horizon, as predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity. He is also a well-respected and popular publicist of astronomy and science in general, delivering many lectures at public venues, including museums and planetariums. His books have won several awards of distinction, including the designation of Outstanding Academic Books by the American Library Association, and selection as world-wide astronomy books of the year by Astronomy (magazine).
[edit] Books
- Electrodynamics 2001, University of Chicago Press, ISBN 978-0-226-51957-9 (Cloth), ISBN 978-0-226-51958-6 (Paper)
- The Black Hole at the Center of Our Galaxy 2003, Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-09505-9 (Cloth)
- Il Buco Nero al Centro della Nostra Galassia 2005, Bollati Boringhieri, ISBN 978-8833916088
- The Edge of Infinity. Supermassive Black Holes in the Universe 2003, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521814058 (Cloth)
- Na Skraju Nieskonczonosci 2005, Wydawnictwo Amber, ISBN 83-241-2296-0 (Cloth)
- The Galactic Supermassive Black Hole 2007, Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-13129-0
