IEEC researcher Nanda Rea awarded Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy

This distinction is awarded by the President of the Italian Republic, on the proposal of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in order to honour those who have acquired special merit in the promotion of friendly relations and collaboration between Italy and other countries. “I’m honoured that my work as an Italian researcher has been recognised outside of Italy”, stated Rea.

Caption: Nanda Rea receives the insignia from the hands of the consul of Italy in Barcelona, Gaia Danese. 
Credit: ICE-CSIC

Born in Rome, Dr. Rea has a degree in Physics and a PhD in Astrophysics from the Tor Vergata University of Rome. She is a tenured scientist of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) at ICE since 2016.

Her research focuses on the study of magnetars: neutron stars with high-speed rotation and extremely intense magnetic fields. Over the last years, she has contributed to connecting research in Italy and Spain by coordinating and participating in workshops and conferences. Besides other international distinctions, she received the Young Research Talent Award by the Fundació Catalana per a la Recerca i la Innovació (FCRi), and the Banco Sabadell Foundation Award for Sciences and Engineering. The Fundación Real Academia de Ciencias de España (FRACE) also awarded her the Prize for Young Female Scientific Talent (Physics and Chemistry category).

In 2018, Dr. Nanda Rea received a H2020 ERC Consolidator Grant awarded by the European Research Council (ERC) for the Magnesia project, which will develop a sound magnetar census via an innovative approach that will build the first pulsar population synthesis model within constraints from multi-band observations. Dr. Rea is also the principal investigator (PI) of the COST action “Pharos”, whose aim is to unravel the challenges of the physics involved in neutron stars.