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Mauro Pontani currently covers the position of Associate Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the Department of Astronautical, Electrical, and Energy Engineering, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy. He is a member of the International Academy of Astronautics and a member of the Astrodynamics Committee of the International Astronautical Federation. He was Visiting Scholar and Visiting Researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL, and at Rice University, Houston, TX, several times from 2004 through 2017. He earned the Italian National Qualification for the position of Full Professor of Aerospace Engineering in 2017. He is a member of the Academic Board of the Ph.D. Course in Aeronautical and Space Engineering at Sapienza and coordinator of the Astrodynamics Research Group at Sapienza.

His research interests are in the field of astrodynamics and aerospace trajectory optimization, and specifically include aerospace mission analysis and design, analytical and numerical methods for trajectory optimization, guidance and control of aerospace vehicles, dynamic game theory applied to aerospace trajectories, satellite constellations, launch, ascent and descent vehicles, and satellite release systems. He is author of more than 120 scientific publications (including 1 book and 72 journal papers), and currently serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications and Acta Astronautica. He took part to more than 20 research projects, as researcher or principal investigator.