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New postdoc researchers in GEPI

» Tuesday 25 March 2014

Since the beginning of 2014, two new postdoctoral researchers joined GEPI. Both from Spain, one of them, Begoña Ascaso, works with GRACE (team "Grandes Structures Cosmologie et Environnement") and the other one, Ana Monreal-Ibero, with STILISM (ANR project "Structure du Milieu Interstellaire Local par Inversion") in the team "Physique Stellaire et Galactique". Each of them is presenting herself.

Begoña Ascaso

I grew up in a small city in Spain, close to the Pyrenees where the sky is very clear. Probably this was the detonator to make me want to become an astronomer at the age of seven.

I studied Mathematics at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in Barcelona (Spain), and I later moved to Granada to start my thesis at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA) on galaxy evolution in galaxy clusters. While I was doing my PhD, I had the chance to spend two months at the Observatoire de Paris, and I loved the experience.

When I finished my phD, I moved to the University of California Davis, for my first postdoc, where I worked with the Deep Lens Survey (DLS) group building an algorithm to detect galaxy clusters in the optical from 2008 to 2011. Later, I came back to the IAA in Granada for another postdoc to work on galaxy clusters in the ALHAMBRA (Advance Large Homogeneous Area Medium Band Redshift Astronomical Survey) and the Javalambra-PAU Astrophysical Survey (J-PAS).

Since January 2014, I’m a postdoc working at the Observatoire de Paris. My main work here consists on developing cosmological simulations with realistic photometric redshifts mimicking next generation surveys such as Euclid and J-PAS and using them to predict the cluster selection functions accurately and to provide cosmological constraints from cluster counting.

Ana Monreal-Ibero

Originally from Pamplona (Pampelune, as you say here), I had the pleasure of doing my studies in Tenerife (Canary Islands), one of the best places in the world to observe the stary sky as well as a paradisiac environment to enjoy the nature, both sea and mountain. After my PhD at the IAC, I moved to Potsdam, a city full of palaces, parks and lakes. There I worked as a postdoc at the AIP in the 3D Spectroscopy group, led by Martin Roth. I still moved a bit more around Europe to work at ESO (Garching bei München) and the IAA (Granada). One can say that I have been lucky with the places where I have lived!

Science wise, my research focuses on the formation and evolution of galaxies. Specifically, I am most interested in how the evolution of (massive) stars affects the Interstellar and Intergalactic Media and what are the implications for the evolution of galaxies. Most of my experience is related with the study of galaxies with elevated rates of star formation or starbursts in the Local Universe.

Last Summer, I learnt that I had been selected for a position to work for the STILISM project, led by Rosine Lallement. Always in Spain and Germany, it seemed the right time to learn about life and costumes of a new country. After a couple of months here, and having got my first impression of both GEPI and Paris, I am amazed about the perspective of working here in the forthcoming years. One can hardly beats the working environment at l’Observatoire de Paris. And for the first time in my career, I will study our own Galaxy!

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