Maria Lugaro

Maria Lugaro is an Italian astrophysicist who is a researcher at the Konkoly Observatory of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Her research considers radioactive nuclear in the solar system and asymptotic giant branch stars.

Lugaro was born in Turin. At high school, she specialised in classics, including Greek and Latin. She was an undergraduate student in theoretical physics at the University of Turin. During her undergraduate studies, she worked on slow neutron captures. She was supported by the Australian Government to complete her doctorate at Monash University. Her research considered nucleosynthesis in asymptotic giant branch stars.

Lugaro worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Notre Dame and University of Cambridge. She moved to Utrecht University as a Dutch Research Council VENI Fellow. In 2008, she returned to Australia, where she was made an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer at Monash University. She used radioactive dating to understand the age of meteorites. She moved to Konkoly Observatory at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2014.

In 2017, Lugaro was awarded a European Research Council Consolidator Grants for RADIOSTAR, a program that looks to understand the radioactive nuclei produced in stellar nuclear reactions. Lugaro believes that it will be possible to uncover the history of the solar system by examining the origin of these radioactive nuclei. She has studied neutron stars, and showed that their collisions can result in supernova that collapse whilst spinning, generating strong magnetic fields and super heavy elements.

• Claudio Arlandini; Franz Kappeler; Klaus Wisshak; Roberto Gallino; Maria Lugaro; Maurizio Busso; Oscar Straniero (10 November 1999). "Neutron Capture in Low‐Mass Asymptotic Giant Branch Stars: Cross Sections and Abundance Signatures". The Astrophysical Journal. 525 (2): 886–900. arXiv:astro-ph/9906266. Bibcode:1999ApJ...525..886A. doi:10.1086/307938. ISSN 0004-637X. Wikidata Q56049606.
• Lugaro M.; Ugalde C.; Karakas A. I.; Gorres J.; Wiescher M.; Lattanzio J. C.; Cannon R. C. (2004). "Reaction rate uncertainties and the production of ^19^F in asymptotic giant branch stars". Letters of the Astrophysical Journal. 615: 934–946. arXiv:astro-ph/0407551. Bibcode:2004ApJ...615..934L. doi:10.1086/424559. ISSN 2041-8205. Wikidata Q68388394.
• Amanda I. Karakas; Maria Lugaro (28 June 2016). "Stellar yields from metal-rich asymptotic giant branch models". The Astrophysical Journal. 825 (1): 26–26. arXiv:1604.02178. Bibcode:2016ApJ...825...26K. doi:10.3847/0004-637X/825/1/26. ISSN 0004-637X. Wikidata Q59836840.

Lugaro has four sons, including a set of twins.