Roberto Cervellati

Roberto Cervellati was born in Rome in November 1933; reports at his death noted that he would have turned 93 on 13 November 2026. He trained as a physicist. Few further details of his early life and education were reported.

Cervellati spent much of his career as a physicist and researcher at ENEA, the Italian national agency for new technologies, energy and sustainable economic development. He worked closely with the engineer Mario Zucchelli, president of ENEA's Antarctic consortium and the founder of Italy's National Antarctic Research Programme.

Within that programme he held roles in scientific coordination and operational management, bringing together the needs of researchers and the logistics of expeditions in an environment of isolation and extreme climate. He took part in seven Antarctic expeditions, several of them as mission leader.

From 1992 to 2006 he represented Italy in the expert group of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). In those years he also led the SCAR work that produced the Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica, the international dictionary of Antarctic place names.

His publications included Orientering. Orientarsi nella natura (Edizioni Mediterranee, 1983), written with Maria Chiara Ramorino and Luca Pennisi, and Italia in Antartide (ENEA, 1993), written with Bruno Marsico.

Cervellati lived in the Prati district of Rome, on viale Angelico. He had been widowed some years before his death and was survived by his family, including his daughter.

On the afternoon of Friday 6 November 2026, Cervellati was walking on the cycle path in viale Angelico, near his home in Rome's Prati district, when he was struck by an electric scooter. The rider, described by a witness as a man of about 40 wearing a hood and no helmet, stayed briefly and then left without giving assistance. Cervellati was taken by ambulance in a critical condition to the Policlinico Gemelli, where he died in intensive care on Saturday 7 November 2026, aged 92, without regaining consciousness.

The local police of Roma Capitale opened an investigation to identify the rider, and the Rome prosecutor's office opened a case for road homicide and failure to give assistance. Reports said an autopsy was likely. The National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) expressed its condolences.

Cervellati is remembered as one of the pioneers of Italy's scientific presence in Antarctica, both as an expedition leader and as an organiser who helped make field research possible in one of the harshest environments on Earth. His work on the Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica helped standardise the naming of places across the continent, and Cervellati Glacier in Ellsworth Land, named in 2006, carries his name.