Dr. Ilaria Pascucci has been promoted to full professor. Dr. Pascucci's research is directed towards understanding how planets form and evolve; she seeks to understand if planetary systems like our own Solar System are common. She carries out observations aimed at characterizing the physical and chemical evolution of gaseous dust disks around young stars, the birth sites of planets. In addition, she uses exoplanet surveys to re-construct the intrinsic frequency of planets around mature stars. By linking the birth sites of planets to the exoplanet populations, the research contributes to building a comprehensive and predictive planet formation theory, a necessary step in identifying which nearby stars most likely host a habitable planet like Earth.

Dr. Pascucci earned her Ph.D. from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (Heidelberg) in 2004 and has been with LPL since 2011; she currently serves as Associate Department Head.