Chinnici earned a degree in physics in 1992 from the University of Palermo with a dissertation concerning Italian astronomer Pietro Tacchini, supervised by Giorgia Foderà. After working as a secondary school teacher, and a visiting position at the Paris Observatory, she joined the Palermo Astronomical Observatory as a research fellow in 1995, and became curator of the observatory's museum of astronomy in 1996. Since 2004 she has been a research astronomer at the observatory, in charge of museum activities. She has also been an adjunct astronomer with the Vatican Observatory since approximately 2009.
Books
Chinnici's books include:
L'osseruatorio astronomico di Palermo, la storia e gli strumenti (with Giorgia Foder Serio, Flaccovio Ed., 1997)
La carte du ciel: Correspondence inédite conservée dans les archives de l’Observatoire de Paris (edited, Paris Observatory, 1999)
Alle origini dell'astrofisica italiana: Il carteggio Secchi–Tacchini 1861–1877 (with Antonella Gasperini, Fond. Giorgio Ronchi, 2013)
Merz Telescopes: A global heritage worth preserving (edited, Springer, 2017)
Decoding the Stars: A Biography of Angelo Secchi, Jesuit and Scientist (Brill, 2019)
Angelo Secchi and Nineteenth Century Science: The Multidisciplinary Contributions of a Pioneer and Innovator (edited with Guy Consolmagno, Springer, 2021)
Bigg, Charlotte (March 2001), The British Journal for the History of Science, 34 (1): 119–120, doi:10.1017/S000708740036424X (inactive 1 February 2026), JSTOR4028056{{citation}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of February 2026 (link) CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
Pasachoff, Naomi (October 2019), "In the footsteps of Galileo: raising the twenty-first-century profile of Father Angelo Secchi", Metascience, 29 (1): 77–80, doi:10.1007/s11016-019-00470-6
