Space Week Online Seminar 2024 – 9 October 2024, 11:00 CET
Interested teachers who want to register their class for this event are kindly asked to send an email to
World Space Week is observed internationally as a celebration of science and technology and their contribution to the betterment of the human condition through a greater understanding of space, its exploration, and our place in the Universe. CosmoVerse is a network of researchers who work on understanding the nature of the Universe. The network is centered in Europe but has a global reach.
Speakers
Fred Courbin
When asked, as an 8-year-old kid, what he wanted to do “later”, Frédéric Courbin, was always answering “an astrophysicist”. At the time, this was surely more reflecting his early fascination for the observation of the cosmos than a profound taste for physics, but discovering the growing links between the two during his studies made him sure he wanted dedicate his life to astrophysics. Frédéric Courbin has been in contact with scientists very early in his career, going from observatory to observatory worldwide. He obtained his Masters from Paris University, his PhD from the University of Liège in Belgium and went to enjoy the clear skies of Chile as a first postdoc. He then returned to Belgium as a Marie Curie Fellow before joining EPFL in Switzerland as a senior scientist and then as a professor. In 2024, he moved to the University of Barcelona as an ICREA research professor, where he develops a new group working on observational cosmology, gravitational lensing, the study of quasars and galaxies, with a strong component of his research also being in pure signal processing. He is deeply involved in the ESA-NASA Euclid mission and is member of the Rubin-LSST collaboration. He is used to work with data from the best observatories, such as NASA-ESA HST and JWST as well as with all ESO (European Southern Observatory) telescopes in Chile. Until 2024 he was the Swiss representative on the ESO Scientific and Technical Committee.
Lavinia Heisenberg
Lavinia Heisenberg is a renowned physicist recognised for her significant contributions to the field of theoretical physics. Her work spans various fields, with a particular focus on cosmology, quantum gravity and the fundamental nature of the universe. With a keen mind and a passion for unravelling the mysteries of the cosmos, Heisenberg’s research has gained international recognition and inspired countless scientists and students to pursue scientific knowledge.