Stefano Vitale (born 1951, Naples, Italy) is an Italian physicist and a retired professor of experimental physics at the University of Trento.

During his career, Vitale served on many national and international academic bodies, managing scientific projects and communities and advocating for basic and applied research.

From 1989 to 2003 Vitale was the co-Principal Investigator of the cryogenic, resonant-bar GW detector AURIGA, by the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, based in Legnaro.

[17] AURIGA has been the most sensitive of this kind of detectors,[18] with the adoption of a three resonant mode configuration  the design of which was led by Stefano Vitale.

The LISA Consortium is a large international collaboration[21] that combines the resources and expertise from scientists in many countries all over the world.