Marco Bersanelli is Full Professor of Physics and Astrophysics at the University of Milan. He works on observational cosmology, especially on measurements of the cosmic background of microwaves, the first light of the universe. He worked at LBL, University of California (1986–91) and took part in two scientific expeditions to the Amundsen-Scott Antarctic base, in the South Pole. From 1992 to 2018 he was among the major scientific managers of ESA’s Planck space mission, which was launched in 2009 and achieved key findings in cosmology and millimetre astrophysics. He is the former Director of the Doctoral School in Physics at the University of Milan, and he was part of the Italian Delegation in the ESA Science Program Committee and of the INAF Scientific Council.
He is actually engaged in experiments aimed to reveal evidence of primordial gravitational waves in the polarization of the cosmic background, including LSPE, QUBIC and JAXA’s LiteBIRD space project. Since 2012 he has been President of the Foundation Sacro Cuore per l’Educazione dei Giovani.