Lilia Ferrario

Lilia Ferrario is an Italian and Australian applied mathematician and theoretical astrophysicist. She is a professor at the Australian National University (ANU) and director of the ANU Mathematical Sciences Institute.[1]

Research

Ferrario's research concerns stars with powerful rotating magnetic fields, including white dwarfs, pulsars, neutron stars, and magnetars.[2][3] Her work has also helped explain the processes through which white dwarfs accrete matter from companion stars and eventually become Type Ia supernovae,[4] and determined that much of the antimatter in the Milky Way comes from a more unusual type of supernova in which two orbiting white dwarfs collide.[5]

Education and career

Ferrario is originally from Bologna.[6] After graduating from the University of Bologna,[3] Ferrario completed her Ph.D. in 1989, at the Australian National University. Her dissertation, Accretion Processes in AM Herculis Systems, was jointly supervised by Dayal Wickramasinghe and Ian Tuohy.[7][8]

She was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Leicester in the UK, before returning to Australia to take up a research fellow position at the Australian National University,[3] in the early 1990s.[6] She headed the ANU Department of Mathematics from 2012 until 2014.[9] In 2021, after "more than 25 years of experience as an academic at MSI", she was named the director of the Mathematical Sciences Institute.[3]

Personal life

Ferrario and her husband, English-Australian science illustrator Russell Kightley,[10] are the parents of Australian model Stefania Ferrario. Ferrario met Kightley during her postdoctoral work at Leicester, and they moved together to Australia when Ferrario took a permanent position at ANU.[6]

References

  1. ↑ "Lilia Ferrario", People, ANU Mathematical Sciences Institute, retrieved 2026-04-05
  2. ↑ Skilton, Nyssa (30 March 2009), "Monsters of the sky" (PDF), Canberra Times, retrieved 2026-04-05
  3. 1 2 3 4 New Director for the Mathematical Sciences Institute, ANU College of Science and Medicine, 22 November 2021, retrieved 2026-04-05
  4. ↑ "Australian scientists help to discover crucial new information about exploding stars", The World Today, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 17 August 2017, retrieved 2026-04-05
  5. ↑ "Astrophysicists Solve Mystery of How Antimatter in the Milky Way Forms", SciTechDaily, 23 May 2017, retrieved 2026-04-05
  6. 1 2 3 Egan, Laura (5 August 2020), "International model Stefania Ferrario stamps out harmful beauty standards", Il Globo, retrieved 2026-04-05
  7. ↑ "Lilia Ferrario", AstroGen, American Astronomical Society, retrieved 2026-04-05
  8. ↑ Lilia Ferrario at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  9. ↑ Advisory Board, MATRIX, retrieved 2026-04-05
  10. ↑ Ferrario, Lilia (16 December 2017), "Happy 61st Birthday to my wonderful husband", Instagram, retrieved 2026-04-05
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