September 14, 2020

Professor Nichi D'Amico, President in office of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, passed away on today at his home in Sardinia. Appointed as president INAF in 2015, he was confirmed for a second term on December 2019, the first president to be reconfirmed in the history of this prestigious Italian institution. A famous radio astronomer for his studies on pulsars and professor at University of Cagliari, he was previously director of the Sardinia Radio Telescope, the largest collecting area radio telescope in Europe. He was director of the INAF- Cagliari Astronomical Observatory, the Italian representative at ESO Council and Head of the Italian Delegation at the negotiation who lead the Square Kilometer Array to became an Intergovernmental Organisation (IGO). He received the CSIRO Medal certificate awarded in 1993 and the European Cartesio Prize awarded in 2005 for first discovering of “double pulsar”.