Pedro Lacerda's homepage

For the past twenty years, I have been employed in academia in five different countries, doing research in astronomy and astrophysics, and teaching mathematics, physics and astronomy.

I am a member of the Institute of Astrophysics in Portugal and a guest researcher at Leiden Observatory. I work at NL Space Campus in the Netherlands as scientific coordinator for the ESA Phi-Lab NL, and with the ESA Space Solutions team at Instituto Pedro Nunes in Coimbra. I am part of the ESA Comet Interceptor science working group.

Education

• MSc in Physics, 2000, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
• PhD in Astrophysics, 2005, Leiden University, The Netherlands

Recent Papers

• Secular brightness curves of 272 comets. (Lacerda et al. 2025, accepted for publication at A&A)
• Centaur Nuclei: Sizes, Shapes, Spins, and Structure (Fernandez et al. 2025, In Centaurs, ed. K. Volk, M. Womack, & J. Steckloff, IOP Publishing)
• How much earlier would LSST have discovered currently known long-period comets? (Inno et al. 2025, Icarus 429, 116443)

Short CV

• Scientific Programme Coordinator at NL Space Campus, 2024-now
• Member of the Comet Nucleus Science Working Group for the ESA Comet Interceptor mission, 2023-now
• Guest researcher at Leiden Observatory, 2025-now
• Member of the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences, 2022-now
• Technology Broker at ESA Space Solutions Portugal, 2022-now
• Founder, Researcher, Teacher and Baker at Miolo, 2020-2021
• Lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast, UK, 2016-2019
• Max Planck Research Group Leader, MPI for Solar System Research, Germany, 2013-2016
• Michael West Research Fellow, Queen’s University Belfast, UK, 2010-2013
• Royal Society Newton Fellow, Queen’s University Belfast, UK, 2008-2010
• Postdoc researcher, Institute for Astronomy, U. Hawaii, 2006-2008
• Postdoc researcher, Coimbra University, Portugal, 2005-2006
• PhD researcher, Leiden University, Netherlands, 2000-2005
• Full CV linked here.

Other Info

• Here is a list of my colleagues and collaborators.
• ORCID iD: 0000-0002-1708-4656
• Ciência ID: 601F-21C5-E180
• Homepage at Coimbra University