Paolo Farinella Prize
The Paolo Farinella Prize was awarded annually from 2011-2024 at the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC).
The Paolo Farinella prize was established to honour the memory and the outstanding figure of Paolo Farinella (1953–2000), an extraordinary scientist and person, in recognition of significant contributions given in the fields of interest of Farinella, which span from planetary sciences to space geodesy, fundamental physics, science popularization, and security in space, weapons control and disarmament. The winner of the prize is selected each year on the basis of his/her overall research results in a chosen field, among candidates with international and interdisciplinary collaborations, not older than 47 years, the age of Farinella when he passed away on 25 March 2000. The prize was first proposed during the ‘International Workshop on Paolo Farinella the scientist and the man’, held in Pisa in 2010, supported by the University of Pisa and by IAPS-INAF (Rome).
The Europlanet Mid-Career Medal, launched in 2025, continues to honour the memory of Paolo Farinella.
Recipients of the Paolo Farinella Prize
| 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 |2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 |
2024
Prof Ravit Helled of the Department of Astrophysics of the University of Zurich in Switzerland was awarded the 2024 Paolo Farinella Prize in the field of “The internal structure of planetary bodies: clues on formation processes of the Solar System“. Prof Helled has made first-order contributions to our understanding of giant planet formation, structure and evolution. She introduced the idea of dilute cores that was subsequently confirmed by Juno and Cassini measurements of Jupiter and Saturn. She has investigated different possible structures for gas giants and ice giants both in this solar system and elsewhere, and has shown how these structures are related to accretion processes. Prof Helled has a strongly international perspective with involvement in both ESA and NASA spacecraft missions.
The award ceremony took place during the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2024 in Berlin and was followed by a prize lecture by Prof Helled. Read the full press release.
2023
Dr Federica Spoto, of the Minor Planet Centre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and Dr Diego Turrini, of the National Institute for Astrophysics – Turin Astrophysical Observatory (INAF-OATo) in Italy, were awarded jointly the 2023 Paolo Farinella Prize for their outstanding contributions to the field “From superbolides to meteorites: physics and dynamics of small planetary impactors”. The award ceremony took place during the 55th Annual Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) meeting joint with the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) in San Antonio, Texas, and online and was followed by a prize lecture by each of the winners.
Read the full press release.
2022
Dr Julie Castillo-Rogez, a planetary scientist working at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California (USA), and Dr Martin Jutzi, a physicist working at the Physics Institute of University of Bern (Switzerland), were awarded jointly the 2022 Paolo Farinella Prize for their outstanding contributions to the field of “Asteroids: Physics, Dynamics, Modelling and Observations”. The award ceremony took place during the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2022 in Granada, Spain, and was followed by a 15-minute prize lecture from each of the winners.
Read the full press release.
2021
Prof Diana Valencia, a physicist working at the Department of Physical Sciences and of the University of Toronto, and Prof Lena Noack, a planetary scientist working at Department of Earth Sciences at Freie Universität Berlin, were awarded jointly the 2021 Paolo Farinella Prize for their significant contributions in our understanding of the interior structure and dynamics of terrestrial and super-Earth exoplanets. Read the full press release announcement.
2020
The 10th Paolo Farinella Prize in 2020 was awarded to Jonathan Fortney and Heather Knutson for their contributions in our understanding of the structure, evolution and atmospheric dynamics of giant planets.
Watch the prize lectures by Prof Fortney and Prof Knutson:
Farinella Prize lectures from Europlanet Society on Vimeo.
Adam P. Showman
The 2020 prize was also awarded in honour of the outstanding scientific contributions of Adam Showman (1968-2020) who had accepted to be a member of the prize committee and passed away unexpectedly, leaving an immense body of theoretical work to understand the dynamics of planetary atmospheres
Citation and press release
2019
The 9th Paolo Farinella Prize in 2019 was awarded to Scott Sheppard and Chad Trujillo for their contribution to the field of ‘Completing the Inventory of the Solar System’.
2018
The 8th Paolo Farinella Prize in 2018 was awarded to Francis Nimmo for his contribution to the field of ‘Giant planets’ satellite systems’.
Citation and Press release
2017
The 7th Paolo Farinella Prize in 2017 was awarded to Simone Marchi for his contribution to the field of ‘Colliding worlds: A journey in time and space through the solar system’.
2016
The 6th Paolo Farinella Prize in 2016 was awarded to Kleomenis Tsiganis for his contribution to the field of ‘Applications of celestial mechanics to the dynamics of planetary systems’.
2015
The 5th Paolo Farinella Prize in 2015 was awarded to Nicolas Biver for his contribution to the field of ‘Dynamics and physics of comets’.
2014
The 4th Paolo Farinella Prize in 2014 was awarded to David Vokrouhlicky for his contribution to the field of ‘Asteroid dynamics’.
Citation and press release
2013
The 3rd Paolo Farinella Prize in 2013 was awarded to Patrick Michel for his contribution to the field of ‘Collisional processes in the Solar System’.
2012
The 2nd Paolo Farinella Prize in 2012 was awarded to John Chambers for his contribution to the field of ‘Formation and early evolution of the solar system’.
2011
The inaugural Paolo Farinella Prize in 2011 was awarded to William F Bottke for his contribution to the field of ‘Physics and dynamics of small solar system bodies’.
The prize was supported by the University of Pisa, IAPS-INAF (Rome), IFAC/CNR (Firenze) and ASI.
