All episodes of Beautiful Minds
Ha found water on Pluto, participating in the NASA mission which for the first time in history closely observed the dwarf planet. He studied Saturn, galaxies, satellites, celestial bodies. To search for water, the holy grail that gives rise to life. Astronomer and astrophysicist at NASA for over 20 years, has become the world‘s number 1 expert in Remote Sensing (a technology that allows you to acquire information on the composition of surfaces).
Then within himself, he feels new awareness. And moving his gaze from space to the earth, he sees the great problems of humanity: poverty, world hunger, climate change. And something urgent makes her want to make an impact.
“Working in space is a wonderful thing that opens the door to new and fundamental technologies. It is an investment in the future. But at a certain point I asked myself: Why not use the knowledge gained from working in the problem space of humanity? L’agriculture it might be the right place. Yet I knew nothing about agriculture. I also have the so-called black thumb.”
From galaxies to stars, solar system, earth. So Cristina Dalle Ore, who left Padua at a very young age for the world of science, leaves everything to do research in agriculture. And she today she from California she works for a huge Bayer Crop Science project in collaboration with theInternational Rice Research Institute (IRRI). It aims to encourage farmers to change the rice culture, from rice paddies to water dry-grown rice. And to spread a new culture that promotes sustainability.
“For a long time I studied the surface composition of satellites and icy planetsat the ends of the solar system. I’ve been on incredible missions, Saturn Cassini, Pluto New Horizons, looking for life or the conditions that could support it. Under the frozen crust of the Dwarf Planet we have found liquid water, but we have not yet found traces of the molecules that allow the development of life. The potential is there, but it will take more missions. The only place where there is life is Earth. Our planet is unique. So with those same technologies that I’ve been using for many years, combined with artificial intelligence, I started studying the composition of leaves, to understand what is under the surface and how the plant responds to drought, fertilizers and their reduction. We are pushing research to the edge of knowledge…”
She believes it. A Bayer manager, Jonathan Jenkinson, sees potential in these searches and says: why not? Let’s try. In the research world, the two are referred to as unicorns.
“In life I have always been reckless. I threw myself into fields in which I knew nothing, moved only by the desire to research. My great fortune was to always work with extraordinary people. Giants of science”.
Daughter of a pioneer of cardiac surgery, Professor Morea, the man of the first heart transplant in Italy, Cristina dreams of following her father’s career. “A great lover of astronomy, he was my muse, my hero. To become like him, I wanted to do medicine. ‘No – he told me – you’re wasted. You like mathematics, physics, you have to do something scientific. Go to Padua to do astronomy”. Dad, I won’t make it, I kept answering him. And he ‘Try it. Try it’. That ‘try it’ has become a mantra for me and has inspired my whole life”.
Cristina and degree in astronomy and astrophysics in Padua, the best Italian faculty at the time. She decides to do her thesis abroad to get noticed and then pursue a career as a researcher. “It was a very competitive world in those days.” She talks about it with a professor who puts her in contact with Sandra Faber, among the 100 most outstanding scientists in astrophysics in the world. “We studied her in astronomy books, there was a law in her name, she was an incredible woman. I remember my arrival at the University of California in Santa Cruz. I was shy, I spoke English like third world foreigners, I didn’t know programming, I had never done research, I was a blank slate. With one advantage: I was completely ignorant of anything that was a limitation. On the first appointment, Professor Faber told me: ‘Call me Sandy. And, since you’re a woman, be prepared to work two times more'”.
And so it was. “I started studying like crazy, I entered the university at 8 and left at midnight, I slept in the student dormitories. I spent the day studying galaxies in English, I worked with data, I did research and I was very passionate. In the evening but I always had a headache. And with my first love, who later became a husband, I learned to program”
Six months in Santa Cruz, then Cristina returns to graduate. Her thesis is published in scientific journals. “That ‘Call me Sandy’ has become the metaphor for ‘anything is possible.'” In fact Sandy calls her back to make a PhD at the University of Santa Cruz. Meanwhile, he marries his first love. Her husband is called to Boston for an important job, Cristina hesitates, she knows that she must give up the dream of working with Sandy Faber, but she will be the one to tell her: ‘Go to Harvard, there is the guru of spectroscopy‘. “It was the subject of my thesis for the PHD”.
Nine years in Boston, Cristina works at Harvard with this great theorist and has three children. She then she returns to California. A friend’s husband is looking for someone to help him research the solar system. So, quite by accident, starts working at NASA without knowing anything about the planets. “I ignored my limitsI was looking at the lens. His name was Dale Cruikshank. And it was another giant. He had discovered methane on Pluto. And with great patience he explained everything to me. In the 2009 I start working with statistical techniques that today are classified as machine learning and it was an incredible mental opening. I came across a colleague, Giuseppe Marzo, who had started applying them. And so I used them too.”
Tendency to minimize obstacles and look at what’s else, joy in discovering and understanding. And that ‘try it’ that burns like a fire inside. “It takes courage and a lot of recklessness. How do you do it? I think of the worst thing that can happen to me and when I see the danger I make alternative plans that calm me down. So next to Plan A, I have plan B, C, D, E.. .”.
Husband an engineer, three children: a neurosurgeon, a chemical engineer with a PHD, an economist, a life in Cupertino. “I will never go back to Italy. But I deeply love my country. I see that there are still many difficulties in working and I understand why so many people go abroad. We Italians carry the torch of innovation and research around the world. We are an incredible people, with an innate creativity. We have been the cradle of civilization for a long time and this, perhaps, has sown the seed of creativity in us. We have artists who came before us, we have inventors, Leonardo and Galileo to name a few. We have a very high potential but too often we don’t have the means. So the other countries take us and give us space. Because research is progress, it is knowledge of oneself and of the world around us”.
Will we be able to defeat hunger in the world? “It’s a fight. It’s a race against time but we will do everything to make it. Never surrender. Never give up. I always tell myself that. Don’t look at the obstacles, keep your eyes fixed on the goal”.
Bello, never surrender!