[extropy-chat] Graps in Almanacco della Scienza

[Amara Graps]

Hi Folks,

This is the result of an interview that the CNR press office had with
me some time ago. Their goal: To write a 'profile' of scientists
working at their institutes (technically I am not of CNR, but of INAF).
I don't know why they chose me, except they said that scientists
usually emigrate out, not immigrate in, and they were curious.

...some lightness for your end-of-week...

http://<http://www.almanacco.rm.cnr.it>www.almanacco.rm.cnr.it  (go 
to the bottom). In Italian.

The bungie jumping picture is 10 years old. :-) They plucked it
from an obscure place. The article had a few things wrong, but that
happens, sometimes.


Amara


---------------------------------------------------------------

P.S. The translation from Italian to English is the following.

  "Amara Lynn Graps, an astrophysicist divided between star dust and
   violins. In Hawaii [written Haway ... yipes!] my family was living
   in a houseboat [sailboat!] and one of my first souvenirs I remember
   is the enchant of the starry nights of Pacific Ocean. I do not think one
   can look at that night sky without asking oneself what is all this
   Universe we all can divide among ourselves. In this way the american
   Amara Lynn Graps (researcher at the IFSI, CNR, Rome) explains the
   origin of her passion to astrophysics. Amara works to three space
   missions. She is in fact managing [working in!] the projects of
   IR spectrometry on Cassini probe, now close to Saturn; on Rosetta probe,
   since few  months on the way to the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko; and on
   Dawn probe, which will be launched in one and half year towards the
   asteroids Vesta and Ceres. One could think to ask her how one would
   see the Earth from there above, were the IR images giving to the
   human eye the same pleasure of a starry sky. Anyway Amara has thought
   also to this: when one visits her website, one finds a link to NASA
   showing the virtual images of the Solar System when one is onboard
   of the Cassini probe.

   But what is doing a USA researcher in Italy, since usually the
   contrary happens ?  "I desired to live in Europe, the continent
   where I have my roots", she explains. Amara Graps are latvian names
   indeed, and latvian is her father's nationality. "Therefore - she
   goes on - I have taken my PhD in Heidelberg, Germany, studying
   cosmic dust, interplanetary dust in particular, and its processes
   of ionization and its dynamics".

   "Being born and grown between Hawaii (Haway again in the it-text,
   yipes!) and California, however, in Germany I was seeing a so faint
   Sun, that I thought to Italy". In this way she reaches IFSI in Jan
   2003. "Here I find many bureaucratic problems: also to repair the
   phone line, one needs so much time. Anyway in IFSI I've found big
   availability from my colleagues, overall during my first months
   here, which were very difficult for me. Italians know very well how
   to enjoy life". Amara too knows: bicycle, volcanoes, Cremona's
   violins, literature are only few of her ways to spend the short free
   time she can find out of job. Then her website, rich and deeply
   developed. "It is like an appendice of myself, a way to interact
   with the world".

   Besides space missions, Amara continues to study cosmic dust.
   "It is everywhere - she concludes - so that it can provide a large
   amount of information on the origin and evolution of planets, stars
   and the Universe itself. When one studies it, one put him/herself
   at the crosspoint among solid state physics, gravity and
   electrodynamics". So that, to make also others participating to
   her passion, Amara likes, from time to time, to write divulgation
   papers of astronomy and scientific calculus.

   To learn more: Amara Lynn Graps, IFSI, 0649934375
   e-mail, website".

-- 

Amara Graps, PhD
Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI)
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF),
Adjunct Assistant Professor Astronomy, AUR,
Roma, ITALIA     Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it