AstroMundus Programme Results
Here we maintain a summary of the results achieved by the AstroMundus programme during its first cycle (Editions 1 to 5) and second cycle (Editions 6 to 8).
Editions 1 to 5
- Edition 1 Best Master Thesis
In 2012, the student Payaswini Saikia was awarded the prize for the best Master thesis within the 1st AstroMundus Edition. Her thesis, titled “The UV and optical spectral properties of a sample of broad line AGNs” was jointly supervised at the Universities of Belgrade and Göttingen. The thesis and prize award certificate are published with the consent of the awardee.
Payaswini_Saikia_best-thesis-Ed1.pdf
- Edition 2 Best Master Thesis
In 2013, the student Gerardo Martinez Aviles was awarded the prize for the best Master thesis within the 2nd AstroMundus Edition. His thesis, titled “On the Evolution of Galactic Habitability” was jointly supervised at the Universities of Innsbruck and Belgrade. The thesis and prize award certificate are published with the consent of the awardee.
Gerardo_Martinez_best-thesis-Ed2.pdf
- Edition 3 Best Master Thesis
In 2014, the student Anna Ogorzałek was awarded the prize for the best Master thesis within the 3rd AstroMundus Edition. Her thesis, titled “MHD Simulations of Colliding Stellar Winds in Binary Systems” was supervised at the University of Innsbruck. The thesis and prize award certificate are published with the consent of the awardee.
Anna_Ogorzalek_best-thesis-Ed3.pdf
- Edition 4 Best Master Thesis
In 2015, the student Aleksandar Cikota was awarded the prize for the best Master thesis within the 4th AstroMundus Edition. His thesis, titled “A Study of the Effect of Host Galaxy Extinction on the Colors of Type Ia Supernovae” was supervised at the University of Innsbruck, in collaboration with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, USA. The thesis and prize award certificate are published with the consent of the awardee.
Aleksandar_Cikota_best-thesis-Ed4.pdf
- Edition 5 Best Master Thesis
In 2016, the student Bastian Proxauf was awarded the prize for the best Master thesis within the 5th AstroMundus Edition. His thesis, titled “Homogeneous Metallicity Scale for Galactic Classical Cepheids” was supervised at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. The thesis and prize award certificate are published with the consent of the awardee.
Bastian_Proxauf_best-thesis-Ed5.pdf
- Academic Publications
Several AstroMundus students authored or co-authored scientific papers based either on their Master thesis projects or on other side-projects they carried out during their Master studies. These scientific contributions were published on professional scientific journals or appeared as conference proceedings. In some cases, conference contributions were published on-line on the conference websites. We list them together with links to open-access versions of the publications, whenever available.
AstroMundus_student_publications.pdf
- AstroMundus Events: annual retreats, best-presentation awards, graduations
Each year, all students and representatives of all partner and associated institutions are brought together in one of the most important joint events of the programme, the AstroMundus Retreat. During the event, students who are next to graduation present their thesis projects with posters and short talks. Starting with Edition 3, a small prize is awarded for the best poster presentation, as selected by a committee of three staff members.
- AstroMundus first and mid-course result presentations
The AstroMundus programme and its first and mid-course results were presented (among others) in January 2010 at the Erasmus Mundus National Info Days in Vienna, in October 2012 at the EM-iDEA conference with focus on Serbia and the Western Balkan region in Novi Sad, and in June 2015 to the international audience of the scientific meeting “10th Serbian Conference on Spectral Line Shapes in Astrophysics”, in Srebrno jezero, Serbia.
EM-iDEA_D.Ilic_Astromundus.pdf
- AstroMundus in numbers and Alumni careers
Applicants to the AstroMundus programme and enrolled students came from many different countries across the world. In most cases, successfully graduated students undertook a career in academia by obtaining PhD positions in prestigious universities and in some cases within international, large working groups. Some of our alumni participated in recent outstanding scientific achievements. We provide some statistics on the programme and information on the alumni careers and achievements.
- AstroMundus Alumni as testimonials of the programme
The AstroMundus alumni Cosmos Dumba (Edition 2) and Kristhell Lopez Lopez (Edition 4) acted as testimonials for our programme and talked about their experience in two video-clips that are published in the AstroMundus Youtube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVwh-nTPs78 (Cosmos Dumba)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAsP0AzZ6jU (Kristhell Lopez Lopez)
- AstroMundus video-clip with students and alumni participation
At the end of Edition 5, in the framework of a campaign to attract funding for future course editions (https://igg.me/at/astromundus), AstroMundus staff members, students and alumni worked together to produce a video-clip about the programme, of which we provide an edited, shortened version here.
AstroMundus_TrainAstrophysicsProfessionalsForDevelopment.mp4
- Letters of endorsement from scientists
Three renown scientists, who had the occasion to have a close contact with our programme either as visiting scholars or as part of our external Scientific Advisory Board expressed their support to our programme and our fund-raising efforts with open letters of endorsement (also published as part of our crowdfunding campaign at https://igg.me/at/astromundus).
- AstroMundus on the Austrian press
The start of the EMMC programme in Astrophysics was covered by the Austrian newspaper Tiroler Tageszeitung (20.07.2009; on-line article no longer available) and appeared in the on-line news of the coordinating University.
https://www.uibk.ac.at/ipoint/news/uni_international/695328.html (in German)
- AstroMundus Brochures and Posters
In occasion of the opening of calls for student applications, programme brochures and posters were published and distributed each year. A collection of them is provided here.
- AstroMundus exhibition booths in Lisbon and in Athens
As part of the promotional activities of the programme, AstroMundus was present in the exhibition area of two large international scientific conferences: the Joint European and National Astronomy Meeting held in September 2010 in Lisbon, Portugal, and the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science held in July 2016 in Athens, Greece. Dedicated posters were produced for these occasions.
- The AstroMundus-ESO connection
Training activities for AstroMundus students, offered by the European Southern Observatory at its headquarters in Garching, Germany, were documented in a short article appeared on The Messenger, Issue 163, March 2016, p.51-52. The article is freely available at this URL:
- AstroMundus featured in the outreach magazine “Coelum Astronomia”
In 2016 we published a short article about the programme on the Italian on-line science outreach magazine “Coelum Astronomia”. The article is freely available at this URL:
https://www.joomag.com/magazine/coelum-astronomia-205-2016/0834051001475658822/p30
- AstroMundus on the Italian television
A video (mostly in Italian language) featuring the AstroMundus Masters Course at the University of Padova has been broadcasted in May 2014 by Rai Italia within the TV programme "Campus Italia" dedicated to educational excellence programmes in Italy. The part dedicated to our programme can be seen in the online video starting at the minute 8:56, with the participation of Edition 3 and Edition 4 students, together with local Master students, the local Coordinator and the Director and Vice-Director of the Padova Department of Physics and Astronomy "Galileo Galilei".
http://www.rai.tv/dl/RaiTV/programmi/media/ContentItem-fbd11def-8a2e-49fc-ae8b-77c1630ebacf.html#p=
Editions 6 to 8
- Edition 6 Best Master Thesis
The student Tadeja Versić was awarded the 2017 prize for the best Master thesis within the 6th AstroMundus Edition (the first intake of the second cycle of the AstroMundus course). Her thesis, titled “On the Kinematics of Sculptor Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy” was supervised at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. The thesis and prize award certificate are published with the consent of the awardee.
Tadeja_Versić best-thesis-Ed6.pdf
- Edition 7 Best Master Thesis
The student Abhishek Chougule was awarded the 2018 prize for the best Master thesis within the 7th AstroMundus Edition (the second intake of the second AstroMundus cycle). His thesis, titled “Influence of improved Stark broadening data on chromium spectral lines” was jointly supervised at the Universities of Innsbruck and Belgrade. The prize award certificate is published with the consent of the awardee. The thesis is made available by the digital library of the University of Innbruck and Landesbibliothek Tirol under Creative Commons License.
Abhishek Chougule best-thesis-Ed7.pdf
- Edition 8 Best Master Thesis
The student Hitesh Narendra Lala was awarded the 2019 prize for the best Master thesis within the 8th AstroMundus Edition (the third intake of the second AstroMundus cycle). His thesis, titled “A six-dimensional phase space study of NGC 6752” was supervised at the University of Padova. The thesis and prize award certificate are published with the consent of the awardee.
Hitesh_Lala_best-thesis-Ed8.pdf
- Master theses of the 7th and 8th AstroMundus Editions
Some of the Master theses of the last two AstroMundus editions are made freely accessible by the digital library of the University of Innsbruck at this link.
- AstroMundus in numbers & alumni careers
A summary of the number and country of origin of applicants, enrolled students, and guest scholars over the 8 course editions, as well as some statistics and detailed information on the career of AstroMundus alumni as of May 2020 are given in this presentation:
- AstroMundus student publications
As in previous course editions, several students from AstroMundus Editions 6 to 8 were active in publishing results of their Master thesis or other side-projects they worked on during their Master studies, either in the form of publications in professional journals or as conference presentations/proceedings. We provide a list of such works authored or co-authored by AstroMundus students with links to the publications, when available. The list is updated to June 2020.
AstroMundus student publications Editions 6 to 8
- AstroMundus student work featuring in the Forbes Magazine
The Edition 7 student Agata Wisłocka had her Master thesis results covered by Forbes Magazine, following her presentation at this year's International Astronomical Union General Assembly in Vienna. Agata wrote her thesis at the Department of Astronomy, Faculty of Mathematics, University of Belgrade.
Article on Forbes Magazine (external link)
Scientific poster presented by A. Wisłocka at the IAU XXXth General Assembly (Vienna, 2018)
- AstroMundus exhibition booth in Athens - EWASS 2016
In the framework of the promotional activities of the programme, AstroMundus participated as an exhibitor in the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science that was held in Athens in July 2016. At the exhibition booth, programme brochures were available to the public and slideshows of the most significant moments and activities of the course were continuously displayed.
AstroMundus booth-poster at EWASS2016
- AstroMundus featuring in the Serbian National TV, 2018
In occasion of the 210th anniversary of the University of Belgrade in 2018, a video was produced and broadcasted by the Serbian National TV (RTS). In the video '210 years of the University of Belgrade' available on YouTube, AstroMundus is featured with short interviews to Edition-7 students who were attending their 3rd semester of studies in Belgrade (from minute 17:17 to minute 19:36).
- AstroMundus exhibition booth in Vienna - IAU GA 2018
As part of the promotional activities of the programme, AstroMundus was present in the exhibition area of a large international scientific conference: the XXXth General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union held in Vienna, Austria, in the period August 20th-31st, 2018. For this event, dedicated giant posters and a new brochure were produced that illustrated the programme and its results from the first to the (then ongoing) seventh and eighth editions. AstroMundus students and alumni who were attending the conference, volunteered at the booth together with the official exhibitors and illustrated the programme to interested conference attendees.
AstroMundus brochure 2018 with programme results
Front-desk poster IAU-GA 2018
Series of giant posters for IAU-GA 2018: panel1, panel2, panel3, panel4, panel5, panel6, panel7, panel8, panel9.
- AstroMundus featuring in the Serbian National TV, 2019
The video 'Science in movement: Erasmus+' describes the involvement of Serbia in the Erasmus+ programme. In this framework, it features the AstroMundus programme from minute 2:31 to minute 4:07, including some short interview to Edition-7 AstroMundus students. The video, produced and broadcasted in 2019 by the Serbian National TV (RTS) is available on YouTube.
- AstroMundus featured in an '100 years of IAU' event - 2019
The International Astronomical Union celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2019. As part of these celebrations, dedicated events were organised in many countries. Within the dedicated event 'Astronomy in Serbia and Serbia in the International Astronomical Union' held in Belgrade, on May 16th, 2019, the following presentation was given about the AstroMundus programme: AstroMundus-IAU100
- Last AstroMundus Retreat
The last annual retreat of the programme took place on July 1st - 4th, 2019 at the Petnica Science Centre in Serbia and was co-organised by the local partner institutions, the University of Belgrade and the Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade. Students from Edition 8th, the last course edition of the programme, presented their thesis projects to staff members of all Consortium institutions, a number of alumni from various previous editions who were able to join the meeting, and a representative of the external Scientific Advisory Board, Prof. Andrew Bunker (University of Oxford, UK). Besides presentations and joint discussions, participants enjoyed excursions and social events that fostered networking in a very relaxed atmosphere. This slide-show (on the AstroMundus YouTube channel) goes through some of the main moments of the retreat: https://youtu.be/SJE4QF7DUDI
- AstroMundus at the 50th anniversary of the Astronomy degree programme in Padova
The University of Padova celebrated in September 2019 the 50th anniversary of its Laurea in Astronomia. The AstroMundus MSc course and its main results were presented during the celebration meeting.
Presentation on AstroMundus at the 50th anniversary of the Laurea in Astronomy at the University of Padova (in Italian)
- AstroMundus on social media
Posts, photos and videos on dedicated social media pages give an overview of the most relevant aspects of the AstroMundus programme, including among others student graduations, alumni career advancements and annual retreats.
Last updated: 2nd September, 2020
