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| Michele Cappellari | |
|---|---|
| Name | Michele Cappellari |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Fields | Astronomy, Astrophysics |
| Workplaces | University of Oxford |
| Alma mater | University of Bologna |
| Known for | Dynamical modeling of galaxies, SAURON, ATLAS3D |
Michele Cappellari is an Italian astronomer and astrophysicist noted for his work on the kinematics and dynamics of galaxies, the development of analysis methods for integral-field spectroscopy, and leadership in large surveys of early-type galaxies. He has held positions at the University of Oxford and contributed to collaborations involving instruments and surveys such as SAURON, ATLAS3D, and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. His methods and results connect to studies of galaxy formation, stellar populations, dark matter halos, and supermassive black holes.
Cappellari was born in Italy and received formal training at the University of Bologna where he completed degrees in physics and astronomy; he later pursued postgraduate research connected to groups at the European Southern Observatory and visiting positions related to the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, and University of Cambridge. During his doctoral and postdoctoral years he collaborated with researchers involved in the development of the SAURON integral-field spectrograph, the Hubble Space Telescope observing programs, the Very Large Telescope, and projects linked to the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes. He trained alongside investigators from institutions including the University of Oxford, University of Durham, University of Groningen, and the Leiden Observatory.
Cappellari has held academic positions at the University of Oxford and worked within colleges and departments connected to the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Kavli Institute for Cosmology, and the Department of Physics at Oxford. He collaborated with principal investigators of the ATLAS3D survey, contributors to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and teams using instruments such as MUSE, VIRUS-P, and GMOS. His roles included supervising graduate students and postdoctoral researchers who later joined groups at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Princeton University, California Institute of Technology, Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the Flatiron Institute. He taught topics overlapping with curricula at the University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, and the University of Manchester.
Cappellari developed the Jeans Anisotropic MGE (JAM) modeling method and the penalized pixel-fitting (pPXF) technique used for stellar kinematics extraction, which have been widely adopted by teams from the European Southern Observatory, National Optical Astronomy Observatory, Space Telescope Science Institute, Carnegie Institution for Science, and the Royal Observatory Edinburgh. His work on the kinematic classification of early-type galaxies informed the fast/slow rotator dichotomy referenced in studies from the ATLAS3D collaboration, comparisons with simulations from the Illustris and EAGLE projects, and interpretations involving feedback processes studied by groups at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics and the Institute for Advanced Study. Cappellari's dynamical mass-to-light ratio estimates contributed to constraints on dark matter halos discussed alongside results from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Pan-STARRS, GALEX, and WISE missions. His measurements of black hole masses tied into work by teams using the Hubble Space Telescope and adaptive optics systems at the Very Large Telescope and the Keck Observatory, and his comparisons with predictions from the M–sigma relation literature intersect with analyses by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, University of California, Berkeley, and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics. He contributed software and methodology adopted by survey pipelines for instruments like MUSE and collaborations such as CALIFA and SAMI.
Cappellari's contributions have been recognized by peers across institutions including nominations and invited talks at the Royal Society, the American Astronomical Society, the International Astronomical Union, and conferences organized by the European Astronomical Society. He has been invited to present results at symposia held at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, the Paul Scherrer Institute, and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. Committees from the Royal Astronomical Society and program organizers for the Astrophysical Journal and Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society have featured his work.
- Cappellari, M.; Oliveira, J. et al., publications associated with the ATLAS3D survey appearing in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and presented at IAU Symposia. - Cappellari, M.; Emsellem, E.; papers introducing the pPXF method and JAM modeling published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society with follow-up applications involving data from SAURON and MUSE. - Contributions to collaborative survey papers for ATLAS3D, SAURON, and cross-survey comparisons with SDSS and CALIFA teams appearing in journals such as Astronomy & Astrophysics, The Astrophysical Journal, and Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. - Methodological and review articles cited by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, Princeton University, and the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Cappellari is affiliated with the University of Oxford and participates in collaborative networks linking the European Southern Observatory, Max Planck Society, Kavli Foundation-supported activities, and the International Astronomical Union. He has supervised students who moved to positions at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Princeton University, and institutions within the European Space Agency network. He has served on program committees for meetings organized by the Royal Astronomical Society and the European Astronomical Society.
Category:Italian astronomers Category:Astrophysicists