Farinella Prize to Diana Valencia and Lena Noack

Farinella Prize to Diana Valencia and Lena Noack

Press release from: European Planetary Science Congress
Posted on Monday Sep 20, 2021

Prof. Diana Valencia, physicist at the Department of Physical Sciences and the University of Toronto, and Prof. Lena Noack, planetologist at the Department of Earth Sciences at Freie Universität Berlin, have jointly received the Paolo Farinella Prize 2021 for their important contributions to our understanding of internal structure and dynamics of terrestrial and super-earth exoplanets. The award ceremony will take place today as part of the EPSC2021 virtual meeting, followed by 15-minute award presentations from each of the winners.

The annual award was launched in 2010 to commemorate the Italian scientist Paolo Farinella (1953-2000) and each year honors an outstanding researcher no older than 47 years (the age of Farinella when he died) who has made important achievements in one of Farinella’s work areas. Each year the award focuses on a different field of research, and in 2021 the eleventh edition was devoted to the thriving research field of exoplanets, planets orbiting stars other than the sun.

The pioneering work of Prof. Valencia developed the first interior model and the first mass-radius relationship for rocky exoplanets (1-10 Earth masses) and stimulated high-pressure temperature experiments that investigated how atoms connect inside super-earths. It also began to deal with the question of the possibility of plate tectonics on super-earths and sparked a discussion that is still controversial to this day. In addition, she looked at the composition of this new planetary category, which is essential for a robust comparison with the earth and other bodies of the solar system. In particular, her work on exoplanet GJ 1214 b has strongly motivated atmospheric observations of super-earths to better determine their composition.

Prof. Noack has studied the long-term development of terrestrial planets inside and outside the solar system, from processes that take place inside them to those that characterize their surface, such as the mechanism of surface renewal (e.g. through plate tectonics) and volcanic activity, to those who influence the construction and replenishment of their atmosphere. An important contribution of her work shows how the actual mass composition of a rocky planet can influence its development – both inside and on the surface of this planet. Their work is an important example of a bridge between different disciplines and communities: geosciences, astronomy and astrobiology.

Overall, the theoretical work of Prof. Valencia and Prof. Noack has led to a deeper understanding of the composition and development of Earth-like exoplanets. Your work is critical in assessing the habitability potential of exoplanets and determining how “Earth-like” a small exoplanet is.

Prof. Valencia received her MS in Physics from the University of Toronto and her PhD in Planetary Sciences from Harvard University. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Physical Sciences at the University of Toronto.

After studying mathematics, Prof. Noack worked at the German Aerospace Center at the Institute for Planetary Research in Berlin. She did her doctorate at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster and is currently an associate professor for geodynamics and mineral physics of planetary processes at the Free University of Berlin.

Before the award ceremony, Prof. Valencia commented: “I am honored to receive this award as it recognizes my contributions in the field of super-earths. I’ve seen the field grow from my PhD when I didn’t know anyone who studied these planets into a thriving field of research that attracts many young scientists. It is a special feeling to be recognized in the field of research that I have helped shape from the start. ‘

Prof. Noack said: “I am very honored to receive this award together with Diana Valencia. The research field of rocky exoplanets is still a young field and the selection of the subject for this year’s award in honor of Paolo Farinella is an important recognition. ‘

About the Paolo Farinella Prize

The Paolo Farinella Prize (https: //www.europlanet-Society.org/paolo-farinella-Price/) was founded to honor the memory and eminent personality of Paolo Farinella (1953-2000), an exceptional scientist and personality, in recognition of significant contributions to Farinella’s areas of interest, ranging from planetary science to space geodesy, popularizing the physics Science and Space Security, Gun Control and Disarmament. The winner of the award is selected every year on the basis of his / her overall research results in a selected area from among candidates with international and interdisciplinary collaborations who are not older than 47 years, the age of Farinella at his / her death, at the time of March 25, 2000 The award was first proposed during the “International Workshop on Paolo Farinella, Scientists and Man”, held in Pisa in 2010 and supported by the University of Pisa, ISTI / CNR and IAPS-INAF (Rome).

The first “Paolo Farinella Prize” was awarded to William Bottke in 2011 for his contribution to the subject of “Physics and Dynamics of Small Solar System Bodies”. In 2012 the award went to John Chambers for his contribution to the topic “Formation and Early Evolution of the Solar System”. 2013 to Patrick Michel for his work in the field of “Collision Processes in the Solar System”. 2014 to David Vokrouhlicky for his contributions on “our understanding of the dynamics and physics of the solar system, including how the pressure of solar radiation affects the orbits of asteroids and artificial satellites”, 2015 to Nicolas Biver for his studies on “the molecular and isotopic composition of volatile comets through submillimeter and millimeter ground and space observations ”and in 2016 to Kleomenis Tsiganis for“ his studies on the applications of celestial mechanics to the dynamics of planetary systems, including the development of the Nice model ”. In 2017 to Simone Marchi for his contributions to “Understanding the complex problems associated with the impact history and physical evolution of the inner solar system, including the moon”. In 2018 to Francis Nimmo for his contributions to our “understanding of the internal structure and evolution of icy bodies in the solar system and the resulting influence on their surface processes”. 2019 to Scott Sheppard and Chad Trujillo for their outstanding collaboration on the “Observational Characterization of the Kuiper Belt and the Neptune Trojan Population”. Finally in 2020 Jonathan Fortney and Heather Knutson for their significant contribution to our “understanding of the structure, evolution and atmospheric dynamics of giant planets”.

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