Chiara Mingarelli, assistant professor of physics, has been chosen as the recipient of the Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA) Career Award 2023.
The MCAA Career Award recognizes a member’s career achievements, including scientific excellence, outstanding work/research experience, and quality and impact on the community. The award was presented at the Annual Conference and General Assembly held March 14-16, 2024, in Milan, Italy. Mingarelli is the first MCAA Career Award recipient from any institute in North America.
Vanira Trifiletti—assistant professor at the University of Milano Bicocca and one of the award selection committee members—said, “Chiara was an unusually independent student already at the Ph.D. stage. Then, she became unique in her field, addressing the most pressing questions in pulsar timing, gravitational wave detection and supermassive black hole astrophysics.”
Trifiletti continued, “Chiara’s work across search, analysis, and prediction places her in a unique position in her field to exploit the detections and signal characterization of pulsar timing arrays. Her recognition in the field is marked by several awards, including the American Astronomical Society 2023 HEAD Early Career Award and [runner up for] the “Nature” Inspiring Women in Science Award.”
In her acceptance speech, Mingarelli concluded, “I’d like to thank all of my students, past and present, for their excellent work and tireless efforts; my colleagues at the Flatiron Institute, UConn, Yale, and NANOGrav; and the global community of gravitational wave scientists. I hope to make you all proud.”
The Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA) is an international non-profit organization established and supported by the European Commission for the alumni community sharing a strong background in research. MCAA is entirely run by volunteer members and with a bottom-up approach at its core.
MCAA fellows’ careers evolve in various directions, and very often beyond research. The MCAA praises this diversity and the potential positive impact they can spread as a community in all areas of society. Regardless of a member’s career path, MCAA offers lifelong career development support, networking, and advocacy, with the aim of benefiting the whole society.
Fernanda Bajanca, outgoing chair of the MCAA, explained that the award selection committee “is composed of diverse representatives including [from] academia, industry, organizations similar to the MCAA, … members of the MCAA, and the European Commission. They independently evaluated the candidates and then held meetings to discuss their evaluations.”