Rita Sambruna

Rita M. Sambruna Commander OMRI (Hon) is an Italian-American astrophysicist and is the Deputy Director of the Astrophysics Science Division at National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center. From September 2022 to May 2023, she was the Acting Deputy Director of the Science Exploration Directorate at Goddard. Rita held the Clare Boothe Luce Professorship in Physics and Astronomy at George Mason University in 2000-2005. Early life and education A native of Northern Italy, Rita attended the Liceo Classico A. Manzoni in Lecco, graduating with full marks. Her Laurea degree in Physics is from the Universitá degli Studi di Milano (University of Milan). She received a MPhil and a PhD in Astrophysics from the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) with a thesis featuring the X-ray properties of extragalactic jets observed with ROSAT. Career Rita held a postdoctoral position at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), in Baltimore, MD, was an NRC Research Fellow at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and a research associate at the Pennsylvania State University, in State College, Pennsylvania. She held a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation. From 2000-2005, Rita was the Clare Boothe Luce Professor in Physics and Astronomy at George Mason University, where she was part of the teaching faculty and where she mentored several undergraduate and graduate students in research projects. From 2005, she was a senior scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center with the Fermi group, conducting research on galaxies, jets, and black holes.