The Technological Unit of the Institute of Cosmos Sciences is one of the research groups that has joined the initiative of the Fab-LabUB of the University of Barcelona, where researchers from the Faculties of Physics, Chemistry, Medicine and Fine Arts also participate.

The Fab-Lab UB group was organized during the month of March, when the authorities and the professionals of the sanitary facilities warned of the need to increase the stock of protective material fo rhealth technicians and professionals. The University of Barcelona, searched for those departments and research groups that had 3D printers, and organized working groups to produce and distribute material among the health centres that requested it. So far, the Fab-Lab UB hasmanufactured more than 695 protective screens, 98 door openers and 1270 ear protection units.

Licia Verde is a cosmologist and an ICREA professor at our Institute. She was awarded the Catalonian National Research Award of 2019, given by the Catalan Foundation for Innovation and Research, with the support of the Catalan Government.

She focuses on the large-scale structure of the Universe, and analyzes big galaxy surveys.

Liciais an ICREA professor since 2007, and belongs to the Cosmology and Large Scale Structure research group at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences. Cosmology is the field of astrophysics that studies the origin, evolution and composition of the universe. Her group focuses on finding explanations for some of the still unanswered questions of cosmology, such as what dark energy is, or what originated the universe’s primordial perturbations or if there are any indications for deviations for the model which may indicate our lack of understanding of the Universe. They also investigate if the current model of cosmology, known as the standard model LCDM properly adjusts to the cosmological observations.

Licia’s selected publications:

“Tensions between early and late Universe” Verde L., Treu T., Riess A.G., 2019.

“First-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Determination of Cosmological Parameters” Spergel, D.N., Verde, L. et al., 2003.

You can see all Licia’s publications ather ADS profile.

Anna Ferré-Mateu is an astronomer and “La Caixa”postdoctoral researcher at our Institute.

Anna Ferré-Mateu specialized in the study of the most massive galaxies when she was doing her PhD at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, and then she moved to Hawaii to work with the Japanese telescope Subaru. After that, she focused her interest in the study of the least massive galaxies while working in Melbourne, Australia. Now she is focusing on researching the dimmest galaxies of the Universe. She is especially interested in how the sizes, morphologies and stellar populations of galaxies vary over cosmic time, and their relation to the supermassive black holes found in their centers. When she is not at the Faculty of Physics, you will find her surfing or diving in the sea, walking or skiing in the mountains. If you cannot find her, she is travelling around the world.

Anna is a member of the Galaxy Structure and Evolution research group at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences. The group’s researchers study both galactic astronomy – inside the Milky Way- and extragalactic astronomy – beyond the Milky Way. This includes a large array of objects ranging from dwarf galaxies, quasars and clusters of galaxies, and spanning the last 13 billion years of the history of the Universe. The research in extragalactic astronomy includes the modelling of galaxy’s formation processes, the study of intergalactic matter and making predictions based on analytical models.

You will find her profile here.

You can find Anna’s selected publications below:

"Origins of ultra-diffuse galaxies in the Coma cluster - II. Constraints from their stellar populations"; Ferré-Mateu A., Alabi A., Forbes, D., Romanowsky, Brodie J., Pandya, V., Martín-Navarro, I., Bellsted, S., Wasserman, A., Stone, M. and Okabe, N.; 2018, MNRAS, 468, 3949

”Two new confirmed massive relic galaxies: red nuggets in the present-day Universe”; Ferré-Mateu A., Trujillo, I., Martín-Navarro, I., Vazdekis, A., Mezcua, M.,Balcells, M. and Domínguez, L., 2017, MNRAS, 467, 1929

“Massive Relic Galaxies Challenge the Co-evolution of Super-massive Black Holes and Their Host Galaxies”; Ferré-Mateu A., Mezua, M., Trujillo, I., Balcells, M. and van den Bosch, C.E., 2015, ApJ, 808, 79

Assumpta Parreño is a nuclear physicist, vice dean of our Institute and a professor of the Faculty of Physics of the University of Barcelona. She primarily researches the fundamental blocks that build the matter, known as quarks and gluons. The main research lines on which she investigates are both Strangeness physics and lattice QCD simulations of hadronic interactions at low energies.

Assumpta is a member of the research group in hadronic, atomic and nuclear physics at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences. Her group studies the basic properties of atomic nuclei and the interactions involving hadrons and nuclei. Assumpta’s research interests also include the description of weak interaction processes responsible for the decay of hypernuclei, exotic nuclei composed of neutrons, protons and their strange extensions, hyperons.

You will find her profile here.

Read Assumpta’s selected publications:

https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.87.034506

https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.162001

https://journals.aps.org/prc/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevC.56.339

Mercè Romero is a postdoc researcher at the Galaxy Structure and Evolution Area of our Institute, where she studies the galaxy’s kinematics and structure through Gaia data, and makes predictions based on galactic models. She is currently involved in the Galaxy modelling using both test particle and N-body simulations, and also contributing in the creation of the Gaia catalogue under the CU9-Validation unit.

Mercè is one of the Gaia’s group members at the University of Barcelona. The group has a major role in the development of the simulations and the initial processing and photometric data from the mission. They also contribute to the software development, data management and its monitoring and scientific validation.

The Gaia Mission is an ambitious mission by the European Space Agency, aimed to chart a three-dimensional map of our Galaxy, the Milky Way, and in the process revealing the composition, formation and evolution of the Galaxy. It was send to space in 2013, and since then it has produce a detailed map of our galaxy and two data catalogues that several teams all over the world use in their research.

You will find her group's information and profile here.

See Mercè's latest publications at ADS.

The International Day of Woman and Girls in Science was decided by the General Assembly of the United Nations. The day recognizes the critical role women and girls play in science and technology.

The Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) has chosen Prof. Josep Maria Paredes as a member of the “Cherenkov Astronomy Science Advisory Group”. Prof. Felix Aharonian from the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies, Prof. Paolo Coppi from Yale University and Prof. Reshmi Mukherjee from the Barnard College, under the coordination of Prof. Marco Tavani from the INAF. They will advise the INAF President Nichi d’Amico on the Cherenkov Astronomy matters.

The INAF is very active inthe development of the ground-based Cherenkov Telescopes. They provided the mirrors for the MAGIC experiment, funded the first ATRI prototype – which then evolved into a Mini-Array on Tenerife - among many other actions. It is currently one of the major contributors of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA).

Licia Verde, ICREA researcher at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB), was given the National Research Prize 2018 in a ceremony yesterday, December 3, at the National Theatre of Catalonia. The ceremony was presided over by the President of the Catalan Government, Quim Torra, and counted on the attendance of the vice-rector for Research of the UB, Domènec Espriu. The National Research Prize, given by the Catalan Government and the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation (FCRi), distinguishes the researcher who has recently contributed –in a significant manner internationally- to the advance of a science discipline in any of its fields: human and social sciences, life and health sciences, engineering and technology, and experimental sciences.

Also, Jordi Díaz, expert from the Scientific and Technological Centers (CCiTUB), was given the National Scientific Communication Prize 2018 for the program NanoEduca, together with representatives from the other participating entities of the project.

The jury valued Verde’s task for her pioneering findings on the Universe and having contributed to the understanding of how matter and dark energy are distributed around the Universe. Licia Verde is an ICREA researcher at ICCUB since 2010 and leads the Research Group on Cosmology and Large Scale Structures. Among other awards, she received a European Research Council Starting Grant in 2009 and the Gruber Prize in Cosmology in 2012.

Our PhD student is one of the eight worldwide students that will be joining the program in the winter/spring term of 2020.

Marija Tomaševic is a PhD student of Gravitation and Cosmology at our Institute, and has been recently granted a place at the prestigious Graduate Fellowship program. The program is offered by the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics and funded by the University of California Santa Barbara. It is aimed at excellent graduate students from all over the world, with a highly competitive selection process, as students interested in attending the program cannot directly apply but have to be nominated by their mentor. Tomaševic is one of the eight students that will be joining the program on January 2020, after being nominated by her PhD director Roberto Emparan. The fellowship funding covers the accommodation and expenses for a period from five to six months.

The Graduate Program was born with the aim of expanding the knowledge among the young physicists, in order to train them in the rapidly changing scientific world. It was designed considering that physicists often suffer from over specialization, which narrows even more across the different stages of the researching career. The main purpose of the program is to help broaden the education of young physicists, offering several courses, workshops and talks in different fields of physics.

Students are expected to join and participate in the different courses, and a mentor guides them during their stay. Although is not the main goal, they might join the research team led by their mentors, and in some cases that might result in research collaborations.

Although normally the selected students are in the final year of their PhD, Tomaševic is just now starting her third year, after finishing her Master in theoretical physics at the University of Belgrade, Serbia. Her work focuses on the physics of black holes, with special attention given to the quantum effects in black holes. She has been recently working on other interesting aspects of space-time, like the (im) possibility of time machines and the physics therein. She will be mentored by University of Santa Barbara Professor Gary Horowitz, who is interested in researching both classical and quantum aspects of gravitational physics.

ProfessorJordi Miralda carries on the work done by Josep Maria Paredes,our latest scientific director.

Prof. Miralda earned his PhD in Astrophysics at Princeton University in 1991, after graduating in Physics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, presenting a thesis on gravitational lensing by clusters of galaxies and large-scale structure. After working as a postdoc at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, he joined the University of Pennsylvania as a professor of astrophysics and then moved to The Ohio State University. Prof. Miralda returned to Catalonia in 2005, and he has been an ICREA professor ever since, and a member of our Institute since 2009.

“I thank the trust of the Institute in choosing me as the scientific director”, Miralda says. “We have a lot of people capable of performing such task, and I am thrilled to step up and serve the Institute in this position during a time. My priority as the Scientific Director will be to optimize the conditions and opportunities at our Institute, so our members can achieve the scientific excellence in research, and so everyone feels valued and welcomed”.