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Ignasi Ribas

Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Institut d'Estudis Espacials de Catalunya, Universitat de Barcelona

Research areas: Physics and Astronomy · Astronomy and Astrophysics · Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies · Astronomy and Astrophysical Research · Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena

ORCID iD 0000-0002-6689-0312
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About

Ignasi Ribas is the Director of the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC) and Professor at the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE), which belongs to the Spanish Higher Research Council (CSIC). He holds a degree (1995) and a PhD (1999) in Physics from the University of Barcelona (UB), and carried out a post-doctoral stay at Villanova University (Pennsylvania, USA) with a Fulbright scholarship (2000-2001). Later he was Assistant Professor at the UB (2002), Ramón y Cajal fellow at the ICE (2004), obtained a position of Staff Scientist at the same institute (2007), was promoted to Scientific Researcher (2012) and to Professor (2020). Dr. Ribas’ work primarily focuses on exoplanet research and on the precise knowledge of the stars to improve planet discovery and characterisation techniques. He also actively participates on ground- and space-based instrumentation projects to discover new planets similar to our Earth, for the eventual search for life. He holds high-level responsibilities in the following missions and instruments: i) Co-principal investigator and leader of the Spanish participation in the European Space Agency (ESA) ARIEL space mission, with foreseen launch date in 2028, and aimed at observing transiting planet atmospheres; ii) Project Scientist of the CARMENES radial velocity instrument, which is carrying out a 5-year survey in search of rocky planets around nearby stars; iii) Member of the Board of the CHEOPS ESA mission launched in 2019, and designed to characterise transiting exoplanets using precise measurements of their radii; and iv) Work package leader of the PLATO ESA mission, due for launch in 2026, and whose main goal is to detect transiting planets around bright stars and, in particular, Earth analogs. He has published over 200 research papers in international journals, including Nature and Science, which have received nearly 10000 citations. He has been invited speaker in more than thirty conferences from different areas and has supervised 8 PhD students. Dr. Ribas has been a member of ESA’s Astronomy Working Group (2009-2011), President of IAU Division G on Stars and Stellar Physics (2012-2015) with over 2500 affiliated astronomers, advisor in the area of Space Research for the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (2011-2013), and member of various evaluation committees from international funding agencies and facilities. He is heavily committed to outreach activities by participating in radio and TV shows, collaborating with written media, delivering seminars and astronomy courses in schools, amateur clubs, libraries, civic centres, museums, etc.

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Publications (921)