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ERIS 2022 School inspires next generation of radio astronomers

Over 70 students from all over the world participated in the 9th European Radio Interferometry School (ERIS 2022) hosted by JIVE and ASTRON in Dwingeloo (the Netherlands) on 19-23 September 2022.

The ERIS 2022 school – sponsored by the H2020 Opticon RadioNet Pilot (ORP) Project – provided a week of lectures and tutorials on how to achieve scientific results from radio interferometry.

“It has been a very busy week, but it was also a great pleasure to work with these enthusiastic students, who will become the next generation of radio astronomers”, said Zsolt Paragi, ERIS 2022 SOC Co-chair and JIVE Head User Support.

Over 20 tutors experts in radio astronomy and Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) provided different lectures and tutorials including introduction to interferometry; How to plan and propose for observations; Calibration and imaging of interferometry data; and Observing techniques with various arrays (e.g. LOFAR, e-MERLIN, EVN/VLBI, ALMA and NOEMA). During the week students also worked in small groups with the tutors to prepare an observing proposal to present it during the last day of the school.

Students get tutored
Tutor Ann Njeri (former ERIS student herself) provides indications to students during one of the tutorials. Credit: Zsolt Paragi / JIVE

The School was also complemented by several activities outside the programme of Lectures and Tutorials, including a visit to the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope, a visit to the JIVE Correlator or the organisation of the Evening Lecture “Supermassive black holes and where to find them” by James Moran (Harvard Smithsonian CfA, USA), who is one of the world experts in the use of VLBI to study cosmic masers and supermassive black holes in the centres of galaxies. He has played a fundamental role in developing the VLBI technique. Jim was very pleased to see the great number of students who have specialised in VLBI.

The School was co-organised by JIVE and ASTRON and sponsored by the H2020 Opticon RadioNet Pilot (ORP) Project.

“The role of research institutes and infrastructures such as ASTRON and JIVE in making possible training events such as this ERIS school is essential to enhance the skills of our young researchers, which will be useful in academia and also elsewhere”, says Francisco Colomer, JIVE director.

For more information please visit the ERIS 2022 website or the JIVE news release.

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Group Picture ERIS 2022 School organised in Dwingeloo, the Netherlands. Credit: Zsolt Paragi / JIVE

Published by the editorial team, 30 September 2022

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