Paolo Farinella

Who is Paolo Farinella?

Paolo Farinella was an Italian scientist very active in the planetary field and in the study of asteroids and small bodies of the Solar System.

Paolo Farinella was born on 13 January 1953 in Migliarino, close to Ferrara in Italy. He received his degree in 1975 at the University and the "Scuola Normale Superiore" of Pisa. After that he became a graduate student of Giuseppe Colombo and worked as a research astronomer at the Observatory of Brera.

From 1982 to 1998, he was a university researcher in Pisa, at the Department of Mathematics and at the Scuola Normale Superiore, teaching Physics and Celestial Mechanics. In the period 1992–1994 he was visiting professor at the Nice Observatory with an ESA "Giuseppe Colombo" fellowship.

In summer 1998 he won a national competition for a position of associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics in the Italian university, and starting from late 1998 he taught at the University of Trieste. Paolo Farinella died in Bergamo on 25 March 2000, due to heart failure.