MARSIS MARSIS MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding) is a low frequency, pulse-limited radar sounder and altimeter developed by the University of Rome La Sapienza and Alenia Spazio (today Thales Alenia Space Italy). The Italian MARSIS instrument is operational on the European Space Agency, "Mars Express" orbiter mission. The MARSIS Principal Investigator is Giovanni Picardi from the University of Rome "La Sapienza", Italy. It features ground-penetrating radar capabilities, which uses synthetic aperture techniques and a secondary receiving antenna to isolate subsurface reflections. MARSIS identified buried basins on Mars. MARSIS was funded by ASI (Italy) and NASA (USA). On
Léonce Bekemans Léonce Bekemans Léonce Bekemans (born 20 September 1950 in Bruges) is a Belgian economist and scholar of European studies. Since 2002, he holds the Jean Monnet Chair in "Globalisation, Intercultural Dialogue and Inclusiveness in the EU" at the University of Padua. He is a former Professor at the College of Europe in Bruges, where he was Associate Professor 1991-95 and full Professor 1995-2001. He has previously been a research fellow at the European University Institute. He is also a visiting professor at the La Sapienza University and the Opole University, and has been Jean Monnet Visiting Professor of European Interdisciplinary