Solar System:
Sara Faggi (Goddard Space Flight Center)
Advanced observational techniques for studying small Solar System bodies
Research Scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Assistant Professor at American University, as part of the Integrated Space Science and Technology Institute (ISSTI). She is a planetary scientist and astronomer. Her research primarily focuses on the study of water and organic molecules across solar system objects with the goal of understanding the origin and evolution of life on our planet and searching for its signs in the solar system. She led several astronomical ground-based campaigns to observe and study comets and Mars, supporting the science return of the related space missions (e.g., ExoMars/TGO, Rosetta) and she assisted the development of the ESA/Comet Interceptor mission, for which she is Co-Investigator of the MIRMIS spectrometer, supporting the design of the instrument and providing sensitivity studies. She has been heavily involved on multiple James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) projects of small-bodies, comets, Enceladus, Europa, and Mars. She is Co-Investigator of the Planetary Spectrum Generator, a NASA publicly available radiative transfer tool for synthesizing planetary and cometary spectra. Dr. Faggi served the scientific community as member of the NOIRLab Time Allocation Committee (TAC) panel from 2020 to 2023, and she is active member of the NASA IRTF Keck Users Group (NIKUG), a committee that reviews the performances, the operations and the status of the NASA InfraRed Telescope Facility (IRTF) and the Keck Observatory. Recently the International Astronomical Union (IAU) named asteroid 1999 GP53 = Sarafaggi for the scientific contribution in the studies of comets and planets in our solar system via high-resolution infrared spectroscopy, and the contribution in developing the Planetary Spectrum Generator.
Micheal S. P. Kelley (University of Maryland)
Advanced observational techniques for studying small Solar System bodies
A Principal Research Scientist in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Maryland, he primarily studies the compositions and behaviors of comets. In particular, he observes comets in the near-UV through mid-infrared, measuring the dust and nucleus continuum and spectral features, as well as major gas emission features. He also studies the activity of comets through their long-term optical lightcurves: how they respond to solar heating, when and why they produce outbursts. He is experienced with many telescopes and observational techniques, including broad- and narrow-band imaging, long-slit spectroscopy, integral field spectroscopy, and polarimetry, with telescopes ranging from the NASA IRTF to the JWST. He also works as a scientist with the NASA Planetary Data System, which archives planetary science data from NASA's spacecraft missions, and from individual contributors. He is experienced with data analysis techniques and software, including Python, C++, and SQL databases. Regarding planetary science missions, he was a science team member on the Deep Impact spacecraft encounter with comet Hartley 2, and is a co-investigator on a comet surface sample return mission concept.
Combined lecture plan:
- Morphology of cometary comae, with hands-on cometary data (Michael Kelley)
- Cometary gas coma (Sara Faggi)
- Cometary surface and dust coma (Michael Kelley)
- The Planetary Spectrum Generator (PSG), with hands-on comet retrieval (Sara Faggi)
- Explore JWST data hands-on (Michael Kelley + Sara Faggi)
Elias Roussos (Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Germany)
Environments of the outer planetary systems and the processes within
Elias Roussos is a senior researcher engaged in a broad range of interdisciplinary investigations relevant to magnetospheric, planetary sciences and heliophysics. Since 2005, he has authored or co-authored over 165 studies, reviews or book chapters on planetary radiation belts, moon-plasma interactions, planetary rings, solar energetic particles and galactic cosmic rays. He has rich experience with experiments on multiple space missions (Mars & Venus Express, Cassini, Galileo, Juno), he is a Co-I on several experiments on ESA's JUICE and NASA's Europa Clipper mission. He has contributed to the design, calibration and performance studies of a variety of particle detector systems (Cassini MIMI/LEMMS, Galileo EPD/LEMMS, Galileo/HIC, JUICE PEP/JEI, Plasmon Radiation Monitor for ESA) and he is a dataset reviewer for charged particle datasets for the Planetary Data System (e.g., Juno/JEDI). He has contributed to several planetary environment model developments, most recently the ESA-led TRAPPED model for Saturn’s magnetospheric particle environment, and the ESA-led FIRESPELL project for the interplanetary environment definition between Earth and Saturn. He has also led or contributed to mission concept studies, most notably the COMPASS mission to Jupiter’s radiation belts. For his work and service to the planetary and space sciences, he has been awarded by the Max Planck Society and the European and American Geophysical Unions.
Lecture plan
- Space environments across the solar system: from the solar wind to planetary magnetospheres
- The links between magnetospheric science and planetary physics: the case of the Galilean moon oceans
- The links between magnetospheric science and astrophysics: the case of Jupiter’s radiation belts (OPTIONAL)
High redshfit galaxies:
Andrea Ferrara (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy)
Theories of galaxy formation and evolution
Lecture Plan:
- Primordial galaxies
- First stars: formation
- First stars: properties and observability
Francesco Haardt (Universita' degli Studi dell'Insubria, Varese, Italy)
Theories of reionization and black hole seeds
Francesco Haardt is an astrophysicist and cosmologist. His research spans a wide range of fields, from high energy astrophysics, the cosmic evolution of black holes and the dynamics of gravitational wave sources, the physics of the intergalactic medium, to exoplanetary science. He graduated from the University of Milan, earned his PhD at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste, and subsequently worked in the United States and Sweden before returning to Italy. He is currently a full professor at the University of Insubria, and one of the founders of the Como Lake Center for Astrophysics. Author of more than 170 scientific articles published in international peer-reviewed journals, he is also actively engaged in science outreach, delivering public lectures and seminars in schools across the provinces of Como, Varese, and Milan.
Lecture Plan:
- Theoretical models of reionization
- AGN at high redshift and black hole seeds
Pascal Oesch (University of Geneva, Switzerland)
Galaxy evolution in the early Universe
Pascal Oesch is an Associate Professor at the University of Geneva and at the Cosmic DAWN Center at the University of Copenhagen. He leads an observational research group “Galaxy Build-up at Cosmic Dawn” which focuses on understanding the build-up and assembly of the very first generations of galaxies based on panchromatic observations including data from the James Webb Space Telescope. He received his PhD in 2010 from ETH Zurich, before moving as a Hubble fellow to the University of California, Santa Cruz. After a YCAA fellowship at Yale, he moved back to Europe in 2016 as an SNSF Professor at the University of Geneva, where he is now a permanent faculty member.
Lecture Plan:
- State of the art strategies for observing high redshfit galaxies
- Detection and characterization of high redshift galaxies
- hands on session
Laura Pentericci (INAF - Roma, Italy)
Observational evidence for reionization
Lecture Plan:
- Strategies to observe galaxies at the epoch of reionization
- Observational properties of galaxies in the epoch of reionization, observational constraints on the timeline and topology of reionization and consequences for the low z universe
