Stefano Vitale

Stefano Vitale (born 1951, Naples, Italy) is an Italian physicist and a retired professor of experimental physics at the University of Trento. He is known for his scientific contributions in the field of gravitational wave (GW) research  and the successful management of international scientific projects.

In particular he has been the co-Principal Investigator of the cryogenic, resonant-bar GW detector AURIGA  and the Principal Investigator of the LISA Technology Package, the sole instrument of ESA´s LISA Pathfinder mission. He continues to do scientific research and is Co-lead of the international LISA Consortium. LISA, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, is the future gravitational wave-observatory in space, led by ESA.

Stefano Vitale has served on many different committees. In particular he has been the chair of the Fundamental Physics Advisory group of Science Directorate of ESA, and the chair of ESA's Science Programme Committee, the delegate body that steers the mandatory agency science program. Provided by Wikipedia