Ricardo Carrera

I am currently a Staff Astronomer at the Padova Astronomical Observatory (INAF-OAPd) in Italy.

I was born in Ávila, Spain—a beautiful World Heritage city located in the heart of Castile, famous for its exceptionally preserved medieval walls. After completing my early education at Arturo Duperier elementary school and Isabel de Castilla high school both in Ávila. I relocated to the Canary Islands to pursue a degree in Physics, specializing in Astrophysics, at the University of La Laguna.

I earned my PhD with a thesis focused on the chemical enrichment history and metallicity gradients of the Magellanic Clouds. Since then, my postdoctoral career has allowed me to conduct research at institutions around the world, including the Centro de Investigaciones de Astronomia (Venezuela), the Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza de lo Spazio di Bologna (Italy), the Institut UTINAN (Besançon Astronomical observatory) of the Universite de Framche Comte (France), the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (Spain), and the Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova (Italy).

In my current role, I am heavily involved in massive spectroscopic surveys such as WEAVE and 4MOST. Additionally, since the 2023/2024 academic year, I have served as an Honorary Professor in the Department of Theoretical Physics at the Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain), where I teach Stellar Structure and Evolution for the Master's program in Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics.