Roberto Morbidelli

Roberto Morbidelli is, since 1981, a staff scientist at the Astronomical Observatory of Torino. Roberto's main scientific interest is in astrometry and his expertise covers primarily the design and realization of astronomical data bases and archive infrastructure aimed at treating huge amounts of astronomical heterogeneous data.

Prior to his involvement with Gaia Roberto contributed to the Italian activities during the Hipparcos mission, building some useful tools for object matching between existing astronomical catalogues and the double stars data from Hipparcos. He has also participated in the importation and maintainance of the Guide Star Catalogue I inside the DIRA data base and during the past 10 years has collaborated in the Guide Star Catalogue II project (database and catalogue realization).

Roberto is currently a member of CU3 (Core Processing) and CU4 (Object Processing). Prior to the dissolution of the working groups he was an associate member of the Planetary Systems Working Group (PSWG)and an associate member of the Double and Multiple Stars Working Group. During that time he contributed to the effort to quantify Gaia's abilities in the detection of extra solar planets and he was involved in the double-blind tests conducted by the PSWG in order to provide a meaningful assessment of Gaia's extrasolar planet-finding capabilities using realistic analysis procedures.

[Published: 21/08/2006]