Dr Maria-Rosa Cioni

MPhys (Bologna), PhD (Leiden)

Maria-Rosa Cioni

Job title: Senior Lecturer

Memberships and Appointments:

 Associate member of DENIS (1997-2001).

International Astronomical Union (2006 - present).

Royal Astronomical Society (2008 - present)

HST Allocation Committee Panel (2008)

ESO Observing Programmes Committee Panel member (2007 - present).

My astrophysical interests are the stellar populations of galaxies, preferably observed at near-infrared wavelengths, to understand their structure and evolution. I investigate the Magellanic Clouds which represent the nearest template for the study of stellar populations and galaxy interactions. I have used late-type stars to measure the distance to the Magellanic Clouds, their morphology and structure as well as their metallicity and mean age. I am applying similar techniques to other Local Group galaxies and plan to extend my research to more distant galaxies using new facilities like JWST and the European-ELT.

Research Interests

Formation and Evolution of the Magellanic Clouds. Resolved Stellar Populations: evolved, obscured and variable stars. Morphology, age and metallicity gradients in galaxies in the Local Volume.

Teaching specialisms

Final year projects coordinator. Lecturer on Evolution of stars and star's death. Physics and Astrophysics Laboratory coordinator. Analytical Techniques 0 tutor.

Collaborations and Projects

I am the Principal Investigator of the VISTA near-infrared YJKs survey of the Magellanic System (LMC+SMC+Bridge+Stream) - VMC. This survey aims to derive the spatially resolved star formation history and the three-dimensional structure of the system.

I am a co-investigator of two of the other VISTA public surveys, namely the VVV and the VHS survey.

I am a co-investigator of a the WFCAM near-infrared survey of the Local Group galaxy from UKIRT to study their luminous stellar population: AGB stars as tracers of mean age and metallicity across each galaxy.

I am a co-investigator of two VST GTO programmes: STEP, investigating the SMC body and the bridge towards the LMC down to the turn-off of the oldest stars, and STREGA, looking for the signature of the tidal interaction of the Fornax and Sculptor galaxies with the Galactic halo.

I am a co-investigator of the VPHAS+ public survey aiming to map the extinction of the Southern Galactic Plane, the structure of the Galactic disk I and its star formation history.

I am a member of the PILOT (Pathfinder for a large international telescope in Antarctica)  science team. 

I am a member of the WFMOS (Wide Field Multi-Object Spectrograph) science team.