Simone Marchi
{{BLP sources|date=April 2025}}
{{Short description|Simone Marchi Italian-American astrophysicist}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Simone Marchi
| image = SimoneMarchi 2781 verylowres.png
| image_size = 220px
| alt =
| caption = Simone Marchi, Ph.D.
| birth_name =
| birth_date = July 14, 1973
| birth_place =
| death_date =
| death_place =
| citizenship = American, Italian
| nationality =
| fields = Astrophysics
| workplaces = Southwest Research Institute
| alma_mater = Pisa University, Italy (B.S.; Ph.D.)
| thesis_title =
| thesis_url =
| thesis_year =
| doctoral_advisor =
| known_for = Collisional studies; NASA's Lucy, Dawn missions
| awards = Paolo Farinella Prize (2017), NASA's Susan Mahan Neibur Early Career Award (2014)
}}
Simone Marchi (born July 14, 1973) is an Italian-American astrophysicist and Institute Scientist in the Southwest Research Institute's Solar System Science and Exploration Division in Boulder, Colorado. Marchi's main research interests are the formation and evolution of the Solar System, and in particular, asteroids and terrestrial planets.
Career
Marchi received his bachelor's degree in Physics in 1998 and his Ph.D. in Applied Physics in 2003 from Pisa University, Italy.{{Cite web |date=2017-08-29 |title=2017 Farinella Prize awarded to Simone Marchi |url=https://www.europlanet.org/2017-farinella-prize-awarded-to-simone-marchi/ |access-date=2025-04-04 |website=Europlanet Society}}
= Research =
Marchi trained at the Physics and Astronomy Departments at Pisa and Padua Universities in Italy, achieving both a theoretical and observational background.Marchi was a Research Fellow from 2003 to 2010 at the Department of Astronomy, Padova University, Italy. In 2007, Marchi was a Visiting Scientist at German Aerospace Agency (DLR) in Berlin, Germany. From 2010 to 2011 he served as a Research Fellow at Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis and Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur in Nice, France, and from 2011 to 2014 he was a NASA Fellow at Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute in Boulder, Colorado and Houston, Texas. Since 2014, Marchi has held various positions at the Southwest Research Institute and in 2024 was promoted to Institute Scientist.{{Cn|date=April 2025|reason=Prior source only said that he worked on the Lucy mission, it verifies none of this paragraph}}
Marchi's main research interest is studying collisional processes using numerical computations to understand the consequences of large asteroids colliding with the Earth{{Cite journal |last=Marchi |first=Simone |author-link=Simone Marchi |date=July 31, 2014 |title=Widespread mixing and burial of Earth's Hadean crust by asteroid impacts |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/nature13539 |journal=Nature |volume=511 |issue=7511 |pages=578–582 |bibcode=2014Natur.511..578M |doi=10.1038/nature13539 |pmid=25079556 |access-date=2025-04-04|url-access=subscription }} {{Cite web |date=August 1, 2014 |title=Giant Asteroids Battered Early Earth |url=https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/giant-asteroids-battered-early-earth/ |access-date=2025-04-04 |website=NASA Astrobiology}}and other rocky planets.{{Cite journal |last=Marchi |first=Simone |date=July 4, 2013 |title=Global resurfacing of Mercury 4.0–4.1 billion years ago by heavy bombardment and volcanism |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12280 |journal=Nature |volume=499 |issue=7456 |pages=59–61 |bibcode=2013Natur.499...59M |doi=10.1038/nature12280 |pmid=23823793 |access-date=2025-04-04|url-access=subscription }}{{Cite journal |last=Marchi |first=Simone |date=March 6, 2020 |title=A compositionally heterogeneous martian mantle due to late accretion |journal=Science Advances |volume=6 |issue=10 |pages=eaay2338 |bibcode=2020SciA....6.2338M |doi=10.1126/sciadv.aay2338 |pmc=7015684 |pmid=32095525}}{{Cite journal |last=Marchi |first=Simone |date=February 6, 2023 |title=Long-lived volcanic resurfacing of Venus driven by early collisions |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-023-02037-2 |journal=Nature Astronomy |volume=7 |issue=10 |pages=1180–1187 |bibcode=2023NatAs...7.1180M |doi=10.1038/s41550-023-02037-2 |access-date=2025-04-04|url-access=subscription }} Thanks to these studies, Marchi won the international Farinella Prize{{Cite web |title=Paolo Farinella Prize |url=https://www.europlanet.org/paolo-farinella-prize/#2017 |access-date=2025-04-04 |website=Europlanet Society}} and the NASA Susan Mahan Niebur Early Career Award.{{Cite web |title=Niebur Award |url=https://sservi.nasa.gov/awards/niebur |access-date=2025-04-04 |website=NASA Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI)}}
= Space missions =
Marchi is involved in several space missions, including: Deputy Principal Investigator for NASA's Lucy mission{{Cite web |date=4 December 2017 |title=Lucy: The First Mission to Explore the Jupiter Trojan Asteroids |url=https://science.nasa.gov/mission/lucy/ |access-date=2025-04-04 |website=NASA Science |publisher=NASA}} to visit Jupiter's Trojan asteroids; Co-Investigator of NASA's Psyche mission{{Cite web |date=12 July 2023 |title=Psyche: Mission to a Metal-Rich World |url=https://science.nasa.gov/mission/psyche/ |access-date=2025-04-04 |website=NASA Science |publisher=NASA}} to rendezvous with a rare metallic asteroid; Co-Investigator of the stereo camera SIMBIOSYS for ESA's BepiColombo mission{{Cite web |title=BepiColombo: Investigating Mercury's Mysteries |url=https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/BepiColombo |access-date=2025-04-04 |website=European Space Agency (ESA)}} to Mercury; Co-Investigator of the camera JANUS for ESA's JUICE mission{{Cite web |title=Juice: Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer |url=https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Juice |access-date=2025-04-04 |website=European Space Agency (ESA)}} to Jupiter's Galilean Moons; Co-Investigator of NASA's Dawn mission{{Cite web |date=16 June 2023 |title=Dawn |url=https://science.nasa.gov/mission/dawn/ |access-date=2025-04-04 |website=NASA Science |publisher=NASA}} that visited asteroids Vesta and Ceres; and Associate Scientist of the camera OSIRIS on board ESA's Rosetta{{Cite web |title=Rosetta: ESA's Comet-Chaser |url=https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Rosetta |access-date=2025-04-04 |website=European Space Agency (ESA)}} spacecraft that explored comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.
Publications
Marchi is author (or co-author) of more than 200 peer-reviewed publications,{{Cn|date=April 2025|reason=GScholar does not support this claim}} and has published a popular science book, Colliding Worlds: How Cosmic Encounters Shaped Planets and Life,{{Cite book |last=Marchi |first=Simone |url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/colliding-worlds-9780198845409?cc=us&lang=en& |title=Colliding Worlds: How Cosmic Encounters Shaped Planets and Life |date=2021 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780198845409 |access-date=2025-04-04}} published by Oxford University Press in 2021 and served as an Editor of the academic book Vesta and Ceres,{{Cite book |url=https://www.cambridge.org/us/universitypress/subjects/earth-and-environmental-science/planetary-science-and-astrobiology/vesta-and-ceres-insights-dawn-mission-origin-solar-system?format=HB&isbn=9781108479738 |title=Vesta and Ceres: Insights from the Dawn Mission for the Origin of the Solar System |date=2022 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9781108479738 |editor-last=Russell |editor-first=C.T. |access-date=2025-04-04 |editor-last2=Raymond |editor-first2=C.A. |editor-last3=Marchi |editor-first3=S.}} published by the Cambridge University Press (2022).