FRANCESCO SAURO




Classe 1984, è uno speleologo e geologo italiano, vicepresidente dell’Associazione di Esplorazioni Geografiche La Venta. In quasi trenta spedizioni, ha esplorato grotte e canyon dal Sud America all’Asia Centrale, guidando team multidisciplinari di ricercatori in alcuni dei più remoti angoli del pianeta. Premiato dal Rolex Award for Enterprise per la scoperta di grotte antichissime nelle montagne tabulari del venezuela, Francesco si dedica anche all’esplorazione e allo studio di sistemi carsici italiani, dai Monti Lessini alle Dolomiti ed è Professore a contratto per il corso di Geologia Planetaria presso l’Università di Bologna e consulente dell’Agenzia Spaziale Europea per l’addestramento di astronauti per future missioni di esplorazione planetaria. Nel 2016 la rivista americana Times lo ha nominato tra i 20 giovani emergenti più influenti del pianeta.

Francesco Sauro is an Italian explorer and speleologist, recognized by Time Magazine as one of the ten millennial that are having an impact in the future of science and planetary exploration.
He is contracted Professor of Planetary Geology at the University of Bologna, with a peculiar interest in caves and subsurface exploration. With over twenty year of caving activity, Sauro has explored tens of kilometers of caves in any different lithology on Earth, including ice. He has lead over thirty expeditions in several countries among which: Greenland, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Philippines, India, Uzbekistan, France, Spain, Poland, Greece. In these explorations he has performed more than 70 km of new cave surveys and has descended some of the most challenging abysses on Earth.
About thirty papers about his researches and explorations have been published in peer reviewed scientific magazines and in proceedings of national and international congresses. In 2014 he won the Rolex Award for Enterprise with an exploration project in the Guyana highlands of South America.
Since 2015 he has been selected as technical director of the course CAVES and PANGAEA organized by the European Space Agency for training astronauts for operational and human behavior purposes in difficult environments. He has been leading exploration trainings for astronauts from ESA, NASA, JAXA, RUSCOSMOS and CSA.