Lorenzo Sironi

Lorenzo Sironi is an associate professor in the Department of Astronomy. His research group investigates how fundamental plasma processes, shocks, magnetic reconnection and turbulence --- which are of primary importance for fusion research --- can power the non-thermal signatures of a wide variety of astrophysical objects, especially the most powerful and compact sources in our universe: neutron stars and black holes. By modeling the plasma physics of high-energy astrophysical sources from first principles, Sironi and his group aim to build self-consistent, falsifiable models of their observables. Sironi became passionate about astronomy and plasmas at the University of Pisa before moving to the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University for his Ph.D. After working as a NASA Einstein Fellow at Harvard University, he moved to Columbia in 2016. He has been awarded the 2019 Sloan Fellowship in Physics, the 2020 Cottrell Scholar Award and the 2023 Department of Energy Early Career Award.