User:Hsdalgleish/sandbox/Paola Amico

Paola Amico is an Italian systems engineer at the European Southern Observatory. She has been a key member of teams that have developed and installed detector systems and instrumentation at the world's largest ground-based telescopes, including ESO's Very Large Telescope and the W. M. Keck Observatory. Amico is also the Science Liaison for the ESO Supernova.

Early life
Amico was born in 1964 in Italy. She began her career as a high school maths teacher, before attending the University of Padova in 1982. There, she obtained her Masters and PhD in Astronomy, specialising in galactic dynamics.

Career
In 1994, Amico became a fellow at the European Southern Observatory, but she soon became interested in detectors and decided to move to the Detector Group of the Instrumentation Division. She would also volunteer with Italian children, taking them on tours around the ESO Headquarters and showing them videos about the construction of ESO’s Very Large Telescope. In 1998, Amico became responsible for the infrared instruments (ISAAC and NACO) on ESO's Very Large Telescope. In 2001, she became an Instrument Scientist at the W. M. Keck Observatory for four years, where she developed her interest in adaptive optics.

By 2005, Amico had returned to ESO as Staff Astronomer at Paranal Observatory where she led the adaptive optics team. In 2009, she left Chile and went back to Munich, where she took on the role of System Engineer in ESO’s Instrumentation Division.

Currently, Amico works on Extremely Large Telescope instruments (i.e. MAORY, MICADO and Wavefront Sending Cameras). She has also supported the Department of Communication as Science Liaison since 2016.

Awards
Paola Amico has a minor planet (454350 Paolaamico) named after her.