My name is Annalisa De Cia, and I’m an astronomer at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Garching, Germany. 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, such as stars, quasars, or gamma-ray bursts, to shine through them. I investigate the chemical properties of gas inside and around galaxies to learn about the chemical evolution of galaxies and the Universe. Between 2020 and 2024 I was a professor at the University of Geneva, having been awarded a PRIMA grant by the Swiss National Science Foundation to build the  INTERSTELLAR ONE research group.