Roberto Tamai comes from Naples, Italy, and was educated in Italy (Naples University Federico II) and at University of Berkeley, California. He started his career working as Project Engineer on the ESA Hypersonic Plasma Wind Tunnel Project, Scirocco, at the Italian Aerospace Research Center (CIRA).
Subsequently has had a distinguished career at ESO, both in Chile and in Garching.
In 1999 he moved to ESO Paranal Observatory as a mechanical engineer and became the Head of the Engineering and then Deputy Director of the La Silla-Paranal Observatory. In 2008 he moved to Garching bei Muenchen, Germany, to work on the ESO’s ELT (Extremely Large Telescope), and in 2009 he was the Head of Technology Division and then Deputy Director of Engineering at ESO.
Roberto has been appointed as Programme Manager for the European Extremely Large Telescope (ESO’s ELT) effective 1 February 2014.