Biography:
Dr. Alessandra Ricca is a Principal Investigator affiliated with the SETI Institute in support of a collaboration between the Carl Sagan Center and the Astrophysics & Astrochemistry Laboratory Group at the NASA Ames Research Center.
Dr. Ricca received her PhD in computational chemistry in 1993 from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. She was awarded an NRC fellowship from 1993 to 1995 and a NASA Postdoctoral program fellow from 1995 to 1996 to work in the Computational Chemistry Branch at NASA Ames. She was later a postdoctoral fellow at King’s College in London UK (1996-1997) and at Stanford University (1997-1998). In 1998 she was hired by ELORET Corporation as a Senior Research Scientist until 2003 and later as a project scientist by UARC/UC Santa Cruz until 2005. She then moved to the Principal Investigator position at the SETI Institute that she still holds.
Dr. Ricca has expertise in computational, organic and physical chemistry. Her current research focuses on the computation of structural and spectroscopic (infrared, Raman, UV/Vis) properties of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and nanograins and her data are used to interpret astronomical data obtained by state-of-the-art space-based observatories, e.g., JWST, SOFIA, Spitzer and Herschel. Her PAH infrared and Raman computed data are available in the NASA Ames PAH IR Spectroscopic Database (PAHdb) and in the NASA Raman Database (Ramdb), respectively. Her nanograin computed morphological and spectroscopic data will be available in the Nanograindb database which is currently under development.
In addition, Dr. Ricca performs simulations of the ion bombardment of ices on planetary surfaces. She is currently simulating the reddening occurring on the surfaces of Trans Neptunian Objects and Centaurs by the solar wind using molecular dynamics simulations. She is also involved in the simulation of Cassini data using the Ames Vertical Gun Range (AVGR) at NASA Ames.
Dr. Ricca is involved in the development of the Nanograindb database which will provide data to the science community.
Dr. Ricca has been a member of the American Chemical Society (ACS) since 1995.
In her spare time she likes to spend time with her family, travel, hike, attend concerts, sing, and garden.
Alessandra's major publications can be found on the Astrochemistry Laboratory's Publications Pages.
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