Eva Villaver, Deputy Director of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has been appointed by the European Space Agency (ESA) to the Space Science Advisory Committee (SSAC), the highest advisory body to ESA's Director of Science on all matters related to the organization's mandatory science program. This role complements Dr. Villaver's duties as Deputy Director of the IAC. The SSAC carries out a strategic oversight role, sitting above the specialized working groups in areas such as astronomy or solar system exploration. Furthermore, it is responsible for issuing recommendations on the planning and execution of European space missions. The incorporation of Dr. Villaver into this organization comes at a key moment for space science in Europe and reinforces the technical presence of Spanish institutions in high-level decision-making.

Eva Villaver has been Deputy Director of the IAC since September 2024. She began her scientific career at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and in 2001 joined NASA as a postdoctoral researcher at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). In 2004, she was hired by the European Space Agency at the Space Telescope Science Institute. She returned to Spain in 2007 as part of the Ramón y Cajal program, joining the faculty of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid where she combined teaching with research and outreach for several years. In 2021, she joined the Center for Astrobiology (CAB, CSIC-INTA) as a Research Scientist. Between 2023 and 2024, she was the Director of the Space and Society Office at the Spanish Space Agency. Since 2023, she has been a Research Professor at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, which she recently rejoined from the Spanish Space Agency.

Dr. Villaver is internationally recognized for her pioneering theoretical work on the survival and evolution of planetary systems when a star exhausts its nuclear fuel. Her research largely focuses on the study of white dwarfs—the burned-out cores of stars with initial masses up to 10 times the mass of the Sun.

She has discovered dozens of planets around red giant stars, explained the presence of planetary material on the surface of white dwarfs, and made predictions about the location of material ejected by stellar winds, which have subsequently been corroborated by observational studies. She received the award for best doctoral thesis in astronomy for 2001-2002 from the Spanish Astronomical Society and an award from the Hubble Space Telescope Director for her role in restoring the telescope's operations after a camera failure. In Spain, she received the 2023 Research Award from the Spanish Geographical Society and recognition for her outreach work at the 2024 celebration of women in professional careers in Madrid.

As a member of the European Space Agency's staff at the STScI, she belonged to the science policy division, where she was responsible for director's time and time allocation committees, among other responsibilities. She has participated in national and international committees, has 140 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals, another hundred in international journals associated with publishing communications presented at international conferences, and dozens of popular science articles. She is the lead investigator of several research projects and was the recipient of a prestigious Marie Curie IRG European research grant (2010-2014). In 2019, she published the popular science book The Thousand Faces of the Moon; since 2021, she has co-written the popular science section "Cosmic Void" in El País and has curated the exhibitions After the Moon: Exploring the Limits of Space (MUNCYT 2019-2021) and EXTRATERRESTRIALS at the Caixa Foundation.

During her time at NASA's Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), she worked directly in the science policy division and provided technical support for the Hubble Space Telescope. Subsequently, she pursued her research and teaching career at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and the Center for Astrobiology (CAB, CSIC-INTA). As a specialist in the evolution of intermediate-mass stars and their interaction with planetary systems, Dr. Villaver will contribute her technical and management expertise to a committee that defines ESA's long-term scientific priorities. The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) views this appointment as recognition of the professional excellence of its deputy director, who will maintain her current responsibilities in the management of the Institute while simultaneously assuming her new role as an advisor at the European Space Agency.