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CURRICULUM VITAE

Graduated in Physics at the University of Padova, Massimo Capaccioli is now professor of Astronomy at University Federico II and of History of Sciences at the Second University of Naples, director of the VST center in Naples (VSTceN) of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), and president of the Academy of Physics and Mathematical sciences of the National Society of Sciences, Literature, and Arts in Naples, of which he was general president for 3 years. Since 1993 and for 13 years he directed the Naples Astronomical Observatory at Capodimonte (OAC), and guided the Italian Astronomical Society since 1991 and for 10 years. He has been also the chairman of the Working group on galaxy photometry of the International Astronomical Union Commission 28, president of the teaching board of the astronomy degree at the Padova University, and visiting professor at the Astronomy Department of the Texas University in Austin.

As a professor in Padova and Napoli, he has been the tutor of numerous students at laurea and PhD level, and the leader of a few scientific teams in Italy and abroad.

His main scientific interests comprise the structure, dynamics, and evolution of the hot stellar systems, the cosmic distance scale, and themes of observational cosmology. Among the results, collected in more than 300 papers on international journals, there are some well acknowledged findings about the structure and evolution elliptical galaxies and the Dark Matter content.

He has always paid particular attention to the scientific communication and public outreach, promoting activities at Mediterranean level also, among which the publication of a quarterly scientific magazine in Arab, and collaborating regularly with Il Messaggero and Corriere del Mezzogiorno: since 2005 he is a free-lance journalist. He is the co-founder and co-editor of the “Napoli Series on Physics and Astrophysics”, a collection of university books published by Bibliopolis. Among his other interests there is the history of science, the epistemology, and the music.

While director of the Capodimonte Observatory, he has contributed to the scientific, technological, and cultural promotion of that Institute. He built the first and so-far unique professional observatory in the Southern Italy, at the Toppo di Castelgrande near Potenza, and conceived and managed, together with the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the realization of the VLT Survey Telescope (VST), the world largest optical wide-field telescope, which shall start operations at Cerro Paranal, Chile, in year 2007: a major enterprise carried out mostly with local resources.

Member of various academies, scientific societies, and committees, he has collected a few honours, among which, in 2005, the title of “Commendatore” of the Italian Republic for his academic worthiness.

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