My name is Estefania Coluccio Leskow, and I hold a PhD in high energy physics from the University of Buenos Aires.
I grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina and due to my academic career and personal life, I ended up living in Vancouver, Canada, Naples, Italy and in New York and Washington DC, USA.
Five years ago, after doing a postdoc in Italy, I decided to quit the academia to devote my time to what I found out I enjoyed the most: teaching and communicating science.
In the last years, I have been a math Professor at the Universidad de San Andrés (Udesa) and a Physics Adjunct Professor at the City University of New York (CUNY). Since 2009 I have taught maths and physics in different educational institutions including the Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales (FCEN) at the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA), the Universidad Nacional de Luján (UnLu) and the Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA)
The last years also found me giving talks about astronomy, cosmology and physics not only to kids but to adult publics as well. I have written some articles about the environment for an online portal in Argentina called carbono.news and I am a member of massive science, a community dedicated to helping scientists share stories about their work and lives in pursuit of a more informed, rational, and curious society.
In 2018, I was living in the United States, and it had been a year since I had decided not to continue with my academic career after my postdoctoral studies in Italy. I had thoroughly enjoyed my years of scientific research, but by then, I had been feeling a strong desire to share with others everything I knew and was passionate about. One day, as I reminisced about my childhood and adolescence, recalling all the things I had done or attempted to do as a child to get closer to the astronomy I loved so much, I realized that I needed to work with children. I felt the need and the desire not only to teach them about science, particularly the field that I enjoyed the most and in which I was most knowledgeable, but also to provide them with a space, a support system for those boys and girls who were interested in space and perhaps felt a bit alone in their passion. And that’s how I started this project that has revealed itself to be one of the most beautiful and fulfilling endeavors I have undertaken in my life.
I believe that there is no real and well grounded learning without critical thinking and reasoning; without interest and enthusiasm, without passion. In my point of view, when knowledge is systematically incorporated under those conditions, it becomes wisdom. And wisdom sets us free, in every possible sense.
I currently have the honor of being the director of the Galileo Galilei Planetarium in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Due to this responsibility, the program is temporarily paused at the moment. However, a very similar one is being carried out by me at the Planetarium. Please visit the Planetarium website for information about the activities offered and/or follow me on Twitter to get to know what the Planetarium and I are up to these days.
Here is my CV: cv_E. Coluccio Leskow