The newly formed team

Fabio del Sordo is a Marie-Curie fellow who leads his project on star-planet interaction. Fabio has a vast experience in numerical modeling of dynamo, and he is an added value to our team. He got his PhD in Stockholm under the supervision of Axel Brandenburg, and worked in different institutes in Italy and Greece. He took a three-year career break to fully dedicate himself to fatherhood, and recently came back to astrophysics.

Taner has a bachelor’s degree in physics from Bilkent University (Turkey), and completed his master’s degree and Ph.D. in astrophysics at Cornell University (USA). His interests and experience span various fields of physics, mathematics and programming, including magnetohydrodynamics, electromagnetics, mechanics, spectral analysis, data modeling, numerical simulations, mathematical physics and statistical analysis.He is particularly interested in magnetic field equilibrium, stability and evolution in astrophysical settings, ranging from planets to neutron stars, and has worked at various centers around the world on these topics as a postdoctoral researcher, including Cornell University (USA), Pontificia Universidad Catolica (Chile), University of Alicante (Spain) and Institute of Space Sciences (Spain). He has also worked as a researcher in plasma physics at Barcelona Supercomputing Center (Spain) and has extensive experience in programming.Taner acts as a referee for scientific publications, has given a number of astronomy lectures and talks at international centers and conferences, and has participated in the preparation and management of several multinational projects funded by the Chilean government and the European Commission.

Simranpreet graduated with honours in Physics from Guru Nanak Dev University, India in 2020. During her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, she was a part of different research groups in India, specifically in the areas of quantum physics and atomic physics. In her master’s thesis, she studied the influence of black body friction forces on Rb and Cs atoms which have a wide range of applications in high precision measurements.

Although her prior research experience is concentrated in atomic and quantum physics, her interest primarily lies in untangling the mysteries of the universe, especially those concerned with radio astronomy and exoplanets. Following this, her doctoral work under the IMAGINE grant would focus on studying the radio emissions of the exoplanets with the aid of various radio facilities functioning across the globe.

Apart from being involved in research activities, Simranpreet also takes interest in science communication. Since 2016, she has been working as an editor and content creator for an online astronomy platform named “The Secrets of the Universe”, having more than 1.5 million global followers across Facebook, Instagram and YouTube at present.

Albert studied the double bachelor’s degree in Physics and Chemistry in the Autonomous University of Barcelona, graduating in 2019. The following year he enrolled in the master’s degree in High energy physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology offered by the same university and organized by IFAE and ICE. The bachelor’s thesis involved the optimization of the event selection procedure of the vector-boson-fusion Higgs production mechanism to a ditau decay. During the master’s degree he became more interested in astrophysics than particle physics, and thus the master’s thesis involved research in gravitational wave detection using deep neural networks. Both thesis were carried alongside researchers in the Atlas group and Virgo group in IFAE, respectively.

The next academic academic chapter is a PhD research position within the IMAGINE project. He now focuses on the magnetic field creation and evolution of planetary bodies, which involves how different physical phenomena (such as turbulence, or chemical and thermal convection) influence the internal dynamo action. The final objective is to clarify the long term magnetic evolution and its dependence the size, composition and the cooling processes.

He has also worked as a high-school and university tutor which provided experience in science teaching and communication. Albert has given lectures on physics, chemistry and mathematics to all high-school levels and some university courses such as Calculus, Algebra, and introductory courses of physics and chemistry.

Claudia graduated in a bachelor’s in physics in the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) in 2020. During her undergraduate studies she participated actively in research in different groups and institutes. In 2018 she took part of the Radiation department in the UAB where she collaborated occasionally with the Raman LIDAR CTA group and the project of meteorological data from MAGIC Weather Station. During the 2019 she did research stage at the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE) with the aim to search for observational evidence of the presence of active galactic nuclei in compact elliptical galaxies and study experimentally them. In 2020 she achieved its bachelor thesis thanks to the research done in the Institute for High Energy Physics (IFAE) based on the optimization of a discriminant to differentiate Higgs Boson signal from other processes predicted in the Standard Model.

In 2020 she started its master in astrophysics, particle physics and cosmology in the University of Barcelona (UB). Her master thesis was focused on the study of new data for PGC012519 compact elliptical galaxy, the first ever proposed candidate relic seed using spectroscopy from the Gran Telescopic de Canarias. Her next step will be focused on the pre-doctoral position in the IMAGINE project where she will study planetary cooling.

Although her research experiences so far are focused mainly in observational research of galaxies her interest in astrophysics and space sciences go further. Clàudia is really interested in planet and exoplanet sciences mainly in these bodies and the development of techniques, tools, and instruments to obtain information from them. Moreover, she has also interest in the search for extra-terrestrial life in solar system planets and exoplanets. Finally, she is also interested in the industry of space exploration and space settlement.

She has also interest in divulgation and outreach activities. For this she cofounded the Catalan Association for Physics students in which she has actively participated organizing talks and seminars, visits to research centres, among others.

Daniele has diverse research interests, mostly revolving around magnetic fields. His astrophysical expertise was devoted mainly to the theoretical, numerical and observational study of neutron stars. After having studied in Italy, Daniele obtained the PhD at the University of Alicante in 2013, with an awarded thesis, Magnetic fields in neutron stars. He obtained breakthrough results regarding the evolutionary models of isolated neutron stars, which are considered the state of the art by the community. Then, he moved for the first time to the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE IEEC-CSIC, Barcelona), where he dealt with observations in X-ray and theoretical modelling of pulsars’ gamma-ray emission. In 2017 he joined the Gravity and Relativity group at the University of Balearic Islands (Majorca), where he lead the high-performing-computing line of research about small-scale instabilities yielding MHD turbulence in binary neutron star mergers, providing a novel approach based on Large Eddy simulations. Then, he returned to ICE, to lead the new 3D neutron stars magneto-thermal code development within the ERC Consolidator Grant Magnesia (PI Nanda Rea). He recently switched to exoplanetary sciences, with the current ERC Starting Grant project “IMAGINE”, aiming at contributing to the understanding of the magnetic imprints from an unusual background.

His work and research expertise is not only related to astrophysics. As a matter of fact, in 2015 he took a break to attend the specializing master “RIDEF 2.0” in Renewable Energies and Energy Efficiency in Milan, Italy. This allowed him to work in the field of international cooperation. First, he worked for CIRPS (Interuniversity Center of Research for Development) in several projects of renewable energies and drinkable water in small rural communities of Central America and East Africa, as on-site technical assistant for the construction of small power plants. He then went on to work in the private sector as project manager for the EU-funded construction of photovoltaic power plants in Uganda and Eritrea, before going back to astrophysics. He still maintains ties and interest in the field, and he actively supports the work of NGOs on the field (see Network).

He has also extended experience in supervising, teaching and divulgation at all levels for different targets and topics (astrophysics, environment, energy), as classes (primary, high school, Master), talks to general or specialized public, seminars and workshops. Within ICE, he is also the Head of the Teaching Committee, and the point of contact for the Master “High Energy Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology” of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (taught jointly with IFAE).

Since 2023, he is a permanent staff member at ICE (“Cientifico Titular”).

Publications (ADS)
Short CV