The Board of Trustees of the International Space Science Institute (ISSI) has elected Professor Rafael Rodrigo from Spain to head the Institute as its Executive Director. Rafael Rodrigo will succeed Professor Roger-Maurice Bonnet, who will retire after 10 years of service on December 31, 2012. ISSI is an Advanced Study Institute that invites space scientists from all over the world with the intention to gain deeper insights from data collected by space probes.

Professor Rafael Rodrigo was born in Granada, Spain in 1953 and graduated in Mathematics and Ph. D. in Physics from the University of Granada. His scientific career began at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia, of which he was Director until 2004. Rafael Rodrigo served on a number of high-level international committees particularly for the European Space Agency, where his expertise in Planetology was appreciated. Besides, he has worked with a number of research Institutions in the USA, the UK, Russia, China, Germany, France, Holland and Switzerland. During the last four years he served as President of the Spanish National Research Council, the “Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas”. Presently he is on a sabbatical mission in the Arecibo Radio Astronomy Observatory in the Universidad Metropolitana de Puerto Rico.

Rafael Rodrigo will be the third Executive Director of ISSI after Roger-Maurice Bonnet and the “Founding Father” Johannes Geiss. The Institute has continued its spectacular rise in prominence during the 10 years of leadership by Roger-Maurice Bonnet. The number of scientists that come to Bern for high-level scientific work has risen to close to 800 in the last year. Scientific Institutions of several countries have asked to join the ISSI network, among them the Academies of Russia and China. The European Space Agency (ESA), the Swiss Confederation, and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) provide the financial resources for ISSI’s operation.

For the Board of Trustees
Simon Aegerter

ISSI, October, 2012

Contact:
Rudolf von Steiger
International Space Science Institute ISSI
Tel: + 41 31 631 48 90
Email: vsteiger@issibern.ch