EPEC Profiles – Luca Nardi

In this series from the EPEC Communication Working Group, we meet members of the Europlanet Early Career (EPEC) community and find out more about their experiences and aspirations.

Luca Nardi is currently a PhD student in Information and Communication Technologies at La Sapienza University of Rome, Italy.

I had my Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Astronomy and Astrophysics at La Sapienza University of Rome and now I am finishing my PhD in Information and Communication Technologies at the same university in association with the italian National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF-IAPS). I have always been in love with planetary science: my Master’s degree thesis was about spectroscopy of the asteroid (25143) Itokawa using data from the Hayabusa mission, and now I am studying the trace gases (water vapour and carbon monoxide) in the Martian atmosphere with infrared data from ExoMars’ TGO and Mars Express.

My other love is science communication: after finishing my Bachelor’s degree, I understood that studying fascinating things wasn’t enough for me, I wanted to share them with other people. So I began to increasingly get involved in science communication activities. First I opened a blog about astronomy and astrophysics (Cronache dal Silenzio) with which I began to learn and practice science writing and social communication, skills that now I also put into practice by writing for some magazines and by contributing with various projects. In 2018 I also began to do space science communication with my social accounts, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and now also and particularly on YouTube, where I talk about astronomy and planetary science and where I weekly interview researchers and communicators about astronomy-related topics. I love social media communication, because social media are perfect tools to reach people and share images, videos, ideas about the beauty of our universe.

For this reason, in 2020 I participated to the EPSC2020 social media internship and, after that, I continued to work as social media manager for the Europlanet Society, where I took part to the communication team. I am very proud to be part of this, since Europlanet is a very important infrastructure aimed at creating a planetary science network in Europe, and I believe in the key importance of communication in order to reach this goal.

After the incoming ending of my PhD, I definitely see my future in space science communication, for which I have a lot of ideas and projects that only waits to be put in practice.

I got in contact with EPEC for the first time during EPSC2019 in Geneva, that was my first science congress as a PhD student and I was really amazed by the enthusiasm I saw in this network. I then worked with the EPEC team during my internship in EPSC2020 and my first impression was confirmed. I think it is very important that young planetary scientist have such an amazing community to which they can refer when beginning this wonderful career. Thank you EPEC!

LUCA NARDI

If you are an Early Career member of the Europlanet Society and would like to be featured in an EPEC Profile, find out more about how to submit your profile.

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