Cecilia Scorza-Lesch holds a PhD in astrophysics. After years of research at the University of Heidelberg, she dedicated herself to education and public outreach. In 2005, she initiated the Universe Awareness Programme (UNAWE), under which she developed "The Universe in the Box". The program is currently being used very successfully in schools in more than 60 countries.
Ms. Scorza-Lesch has conducted research in the field of developmental psychology on promoting scientific thinking in students and designed teacher training courses on astronomy and physics. For the International Year of Astronomy 2009 she organized the "Kepler Days for Schools". From 2007 to 2012, she coordinated the educational program of the German SOFIA Institute (DSI) at the University of Stuttgart, where she developed teaching materials on infrared astronomy and initiated the SOFIA Teacher Flight Program. From 2009 to 2011, she worked at the House of Astronomy in Heidelberg. She was a consultant for the Office of Astronomy for Development (OAD) of the International Astronomical Union. From June 2013 to March 2017, she worked on the planning and design of the ESO Supernova Exhibition.
Since 2017, she has coordinated public outreach and school outreach activities for the Faculty of Physics of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, where she developed, among others, the educational program "Climate Change: understand and act".