my name is Annalisa De Cia, and I am an astrophysicist. I’m an Astronomer at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Garching (Germany), working at the Observing Programmes Office (OPO). I’m also an Invited Professor at the University of Geneva. I study galaxies, in particular gas, “metals” (that’s how we call all the chemical elements in the Universe that are heavier than helium) and dust in nearby and distant galaxies using background sources to shine through them. I was awarded a PRIMA grant by the Swiss National Science Foundation, to build the  INTERSTELLAR ONE research group, which started in 2020 at the University of Geneva.