Rana EzzeddineView profile
Assistant Professor
Rana Ezzeddine is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Florida, part of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Born in Lebanon, they pursued their bachelor's in Physics at the Lebanese University (2009), master's in Astrophysics at Notre Dame University (2012), and PhD in Physics at the University of Montpellier (2015). After postdoctoral fellowships at MIT (2016–2019), they joined UF in 2020. Research focuses on stellar astrophysics, particularly first/second-generation stars, r-process nucleosynthesis, and chemical evolution of the Milky Way. Key interests include studying metal-poor stars to trace galactic chemical enrichment, analyzing abundance patterns via UV/optical spectroscopy, and investigating transuranic elements through fission signatures. They lead projects like the R-Process Alliance, exploring r-process enhanced stars and chemodynamical tagging of stellar groups. Publications emphasize advanced techniques like NLTE abundance calculations and chemodynamical analysis of Gaia/GALAH data. Collaborations include the GTC telescope and Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations, with contributions to understanding neutron star mergers' role in heavy element production. Current work bridges observational astronomy with computational models to map galactic evolution through stellar chemistry.








