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Since 2015, the United Nations has recognized 11 February as the International Day of Women and Girls in Science with the purpose of promoting equal opportunities, access and participation in the field to women and girls. To celebrate this occasion, and to join the international effort to find solutions to gender inequality in science, the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) will hold its second “Women of CTA” event in Bologna at 18:00 on Tuesday, 11 February at Scuderia-Future Food Living Lab (Piazza Giuseppe Verdi, 2).

The event, which is free and open to all, will gather three female astrophysicists, working in different subject areas and at different stages of their careers, to talk about their professional and personal experience in science: Carla Aramo (INFN, Naples) , Ambra Di Piano (INAF, Bologna) and Roberta Zanin (CTAO, Bologna). After their presentations, and while enjoying an appetizer (coffee break on us!), the speakers will be available for all your questions.

Meet the speakers:

Carla Aramo

Carla is a doctor in Physics with almost 25 years of experience in astroparticle physics and detector development. She is currently a researcher of Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN). She has been an active member in several former and currently active cosmic-ray experiment, such as MACRO, Haverah Park, EAS-TOP and Pierre Auger. Moreover, she coordinated a collaboration to develop a multi-pixel detector based on the coupling silicon-carbon nanotubes, large area and highly sensitive to Ultraviolet light. Carla is a member of CTA since 2012, and coordinates the INFN-Naples group, which is involved in several CTA telescopes, like the Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope (SCT) and Large-Sized Telescope (LST). She is the coordinator of OCRA (Outreach Cosmic Ray Activities), a program of the Coordination Committee for the International Cosmic Day in Italy, and is the representative of Italy within the CTA Outreach Committee.

Ambra Di Piano

Ambra graduated in Astronomy in 2016 at the University of Bologna, where she is currently studying a Master in Astrophysics and Cosmology. She started working on her master thesis project at the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) in Bologna in March 2019 and is aiming to graduate in March 2020. Her project focuses on prospects for blind-searches of short Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs), the most powerful sources in the Universe, with CTA through Real-Time Analysis (RTA). Despite being in the initial stages of her career, contributions from this work were already presented in CTA Consortium Meetings and even in the First CTA Science Symposium, in the context of the RTA prototype status reports and short-term sensitivity studies.

Roberta Zanin

Roberta has been delving into the extreme gamma-ray Universe since 2006. A Doctor in Physics by the Institut de Fisica d’Altes Energies (IFAE, Spain), she held postdoctoral positions at the University of Barcelona and Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg (Germany), including an A. von Humbolt fellowship in the latter. Her research over these years was focused on the understanding of the very high-energy emission emitted by Galactic sources, such as rapid rotating and magnetized neutron stars (so-called pulsars), their environment (Pulsar Wind Nebulae or PWNe), or binary systems ejecting powerful jets (microquasars). Among all cosmic sources, Roberta specialized in the Crab Nebula, the standard candle in gamma-ray astronomy, and its pulsar. She has been an active member in multiple gamma-ray collaborations (such as MAGIC, CTA, XIPE and H.E.S.S.) and held leadership positions, as Convener of the Galactic Working Group in CTA and MAGIC. Besides her science contributions, Roberta has actively worked in the development of software for the data analysis and operation of different Cherenkov telescope collaborations. Currently, she is the Project Scientist of CTAO, playing a key role in all science related aspects of CTA construction and operation.

Women of CTA is an annual event carried out under the Astrodiversity program, which gathers all those activities and programs organized or supported by CTAO within a diversity and inclusion framework. Find more information regarding Astrodiversity and, particularly, about the worldwide situation of women and girls in science on the Astrodiversity page of our website.

We are looking forward to seeing you at Scuderia on 11 February at 18:00!

Contact: Alba Fernández-Barral, CTAO Outreach and Education Coordinator