ESO Science Outreach Network
The ESO Department of Communication has established a network of contacts in the ESO Member states and other countries. The goal of this ESO Science Outreach Network (ESON) is to act locally as ESO's media and outreach representative, in order to promote ESO's mission and achievements, and demonstrate the many inspirational aspects of astronomy. The ESON contacts can also serve as interface between the local scientists and the media. The communication between the member states (at the official and scientific levels) and ESO, takes place through ESO's governing bodies, and not through ESON, which deals only with outreach matters.
The ESON members are science communicators who know the national media and stake-holders, and regularly interact with them. They have a strong interest in promoting ESO, and provide regular inputs and ideas for how to best reach the target groups in their area. The ESON nodes are also in charge of translating the ESO material in their national language.
Below is the list of ESON members. If your country is not represented, and if you or your organisation would be interested in acting as ESO's local outreach contact, contact us at information@eso.org.
ESON Countries
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ESON Coordinator
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Dr Mariya LyubenovaESON Assistant
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Susana Almagro GarcíaESO Member States — Contacts and Biographies
AustriaESO mini-site: http://www.eso.org/public/austria/
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BelgiumESO mini-site: http://www.eso.org/public/belgium/
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Czech RepublicESO mini-site: http://www.eso.org/public/czechrepublic/ 
Dr. Petr KabáthAstronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences Petr Kabáth obtained his PhD at the Technische Universität Berlin working on exoplanet research at DLR Berlin. He frequently travelled to Chile where he was installing a small telescope survey project to support the CoRoT space mission. Petr later worked as an astronomer at ESO's Paranal Observatory supporting various instruments. In 2015 Petr returned to the Czech Republic where he founded an exoplanet research group. He is now the PI of the new PLATOSpec spectrograph for La Silla. He is also involved in public outreach and the education of young children and students through the ERASMUS+ programme which he is coordinating. Visit the website of Petr's Exoplanet group at the Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences.
Mgr. Viktor Votruba PhDStellar Department Viktor Votruba studied at the Masaryk University at Brno University in the Czech Republic. After receiving a Bachelor's degree in general physics, he moved to the Institute of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics at the same university. During his subsequent studies he focused mainly on nonlinear dynamics (for which he was awarded a Master's degree in 2000) and the hydrodynamics of the stellar wind from hot stars (obtaining his PhD on the topic in 2006). He was awarded the Dean's prize in the Faculty of Natural Science for his work on nonlinear dynamics. Afterwards, he took up a post-doctoral position at the Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Science, where he continued to work on stellar wind dynamics and nonlinear effects in stellar variability, and now works as a scientist. For his contributions to the study of the stellar wind from hot stars Viktor was awarded the Otto Wichterle Prize. He teaches a course in numerical methods in astrophysics and cosmology at Masaryk University and is an experienced supervisor of diploma and doctoral theses. He has been a member of the IAU since 2008. Viktor Votruba has been popularising the natural sciences, and especially astronomy, for ten years, ever since he started as a lector at the public observatory in Brno. He teaches and informs students and the general public alike about new results in astronomy and about progress made in astrophysical research at an introductory level. He was also a co-organiser of the astronomical camp for young astronomers, which is hosted at the public observatory every summer. When not doing astronomy he is also a big volleyball fan. Read Viktor's personal web page: http://physics.muni.cz/%7Evotruba/uvod.html |
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DenmarkESO mini-site: http://www.eso.org/public/denmark/ Ole J. KnudsenSAC/IDA, Institut for Fysik og Astronomi Ole J. Knudsen has a B.Sc. in astronomy and physics from University of Aarhus, Denmark and parallel to his work as planetarium manager at the Steno Museum in Aarhus from 1993 to 2014 he served the Danish public and media on all things astronomical and related to science and space research. He is also an experienced lecturer, radio and TV consultant, space expert, populariser and science writer. Ole is a fellow of the British Interplanetary Society and the International Planetarium Society. Hans KjeldsenSAC/IDA, Institut for Fysik og Astronomi |
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FinlandESO mini-site: http://www.eso.org/public/finland/
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FranceESO mini-site: http://www.eso.org/public/france/ 
Thierry BottiResponsable de la communication After a master’s degree in economics and additional studies in communication, Thierry’s interest in international cooperation took him to the French Ministry of Education and Research. He went on to work in the cooperation and international division of the Ministry, and subsequently for a new French agency called EduFrance (now named Campus France). In both cases he was in charge of promoting French higher education to foreign students. He specialised in Latin American countries, organising numerous events from Argentina to Mexico, via Brazil, Venezuela etc. After that, he decided to spend some years working in South America, taking a new professional direction as deputy director of the Alliance Française in Buenos Aires, which is not only an educational institution dedicated to teaching French, but also a cultural centre and an important media library, offering a large range of activities related to the French language and culture. He then chose once again to turn his knowledge in communication toward another field of activities and found a job at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in charge of the communication department of the Observatoire Astronomique de Marseille Provence. Here he manages many activities including outreach, press relations and public relations. A very exciting job. |
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GermanyESO mini-site: http://www.eso.org/public/germany/ 
Dr Markus PösselHaus der Astronomie Markus Pössel obtained his diploma in physics from Hamburg University in 1997, staying on for a PhD in quantum gravity, which he completed in 2003. Research for this PhD was carried out at the Max-Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute), where Markus also started his slow slide into science outreach, writing several books, editing a popular science website on relativity theory called Einstein Online, and co-curating part of the Einstein exhibition in Berlin in 2005, among other activities. In 2007, he moved to New York as Senior Science Advisor to the newly-founded World Science Festival. In 2009, he returned to Germany, where he is now managing scientist of the Haus der Astronomie (literally the House of Astronomy), a newly-founded Centre for Astronomy Education and Outreach in Heidelberg. In 2010 he became the chief public relations officer at the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy. 
Dr Carolin LiefkeHaus der Astronomie Carolin has been an amateur astronomer since the impact of comet Shoemaker–Levi 9 on Jupiter in 1994, when she was thirteen years old. Two years later she bought her first real telescope, a three-inch refractor. Today she owns a total of four telescopes, the biggest one a 16-inch dobsonian. Carolin is a member of several astronomy associations and a moderator in the Astrotreff, one of the biggest German-speaking astronomy-related internet communities. Carolin studied physics at the University of Hamburg and worked on stellar activity and X-ray astronomy at the Hamburger Sternwarte for her PhD. Among the highlights of her scientific career were two visits to Paranal, where she observed flare stars with the UVES spectrograph at Kueyen, one of the VLT's 8-metre telescopes. For more than ten years, Carolin has been involved in astronomy education and outreach. In March 2010, she turned this passion into a profession and is now working at the Haus der Astronomie, the Centre for Astronomy Education and Outreach in Heidelberg, where she is responsible for teacher training in astronomy at the University of Heidelberg, astronomy-related projects for high-school students, and for the centre’s telescopes. Carolin is a big fan of science fiction and fantasy. In her spare time, she goes hiking and climbing in the Alps. 
Dr Markus NielbockHaus der Astronomie Markus Nielbock has been fascinated by outer space since his childhood. He studied physics in Bochum and received his doctorate in astrophysics in 2001. He then moved to Chile as an ESO fellow to work on the largest single dish telescope so far based at any of the ESO observatories, the SEST. In 2003 he returned to Germany to intensify his research in the field of star formation. In 2006 he moved to the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, where he worked for almost 10 years as an instrument scientist for the PACS camera of the Herschel Space Telescope. Since 2015 he has been involved in astronomical education and public outreach at the Haus der Astronomie. There he develops teaching materials, organises public events, gives lectures and workshops, supports the training of teachers and cultivates contacts to classical media such as the press, radio and television. He also acts as a contact person for topics relating to space flight. Since 2018 he has also been employed as a public information officer at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy. For many years he has been enthusiastically involved in several astronomically oriented associations in Germany and Switzerland and has inspired people for space and astronomy. His passion is to bring the Universe closer to as many people as possible. Markus is a fan of Star Trek and Stanislaw Lem. His second major project is his daughter, who has been severely affected by an innate rare genetic defect. Through press activities and fundraising, he works to ensure that the disease BPAN becomes known and can be treated and finally cured through progress in medical research. |
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IrelandESO mini-site: http://www.eso.org/public/ireland/ Clair McSweeney
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ItalyESO mini-site: http://www.eso.org/public/italy/ 
Anna WolterVia Brera, 28 Anna Wolter is an astrophysicist, and has been working at the INAF–Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera in Milan, Italy since 1991. After a physics degree in Milan she began her scientific career at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. There she helped to construct one of the best-exploited surveys of X-ray sources, serendipitously found in the Einstein Observatory images, the Extended Medium Sensitivity Survey (EMSS). She has dealt with all kinds of X-ray emitters, from stars to clusters of galaxies, but her main interest was with the class of the highly luminous and variable galaxy nuclei called BL Lacs. More recently she has moved from the point-like sources at the centres of galaxies to the diffuse/unresolved emission within them. She now devotes much of her time to the study of ultraluminous X-ray sources, a puzzling class of sources in external galaxies, which probably harbour heavy black holes, intermediate in mass between the light stellar ones and the supermassive nuclei at the centre of galaxies. Part of the time she focuses on the statistical analysis of complete samples, deriving luminosity functions, and for the remainder she studies in detail a few selected and complex objects, like galaxies, which have many different components that contribute to the overall emission. The main wavelength of interest is always X-ray, but Anna believes that a multiwavelength approach is important for a complete insight into an astronomical problem and so has worked with almost every energy band accessible. She is Principal Investigator of optical, radio, X-ray and gamma-ray observations of various celestial sources. She is author and co-author of about a hundred papers in refereed journals and about as many contributions to International meetings. In the last ten years she has devoted a significant fraction of her time to both teaching and outreach activities. She delivers lectures on key topics as part of the astrophysics curriculum at the Milan universities, and tutors Laurea and post-Laurea students. She delivers conferences and lectures for the public and for high school and middle school classes on various astrophysical topics. |
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The NetherlandsESO mini-site: http://www.eso.org/public/netherlands/
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PolandESO mini-site: http://www.eso.org/public/poland/ 
Dr Krzysztof CzartUrania – Postępy Astronomii Krzysztof Czart is an astronomer and science journalist. He graduated in astronomy at the Nicolas Copernicus University in Toruń, the city where Nicolas Copernicus was born. His main scientific interests are stellar spectroscopy, variable stars, massive stars, Wolf–Rayet stars and OB associations. He is a member of the Polish Astronomical Society and the author of hundreds of news articles about astronomy, astronautics and space research on internet portals, as well as many popular articles about astronomy in printed magazines. He created the English–Polish and Polish–English Astronomical Dictionary used by many internet dictionaries (including Onet.pl) as well as the Astronomical Dictionary of the Polish Astronomical Society. He has also worked for television, preparing data and texts about astronomy that were broadcasted every day by the TVN Meteo channel. He is co-author of the "Astronarium" television series in the Polish Television (TVP). He created Astronomia.pl — the Polish Astronomy Portal, which was the biggest and the most popular astronomical portal in Poland. He was Editor in Chief of the portal since its launch in 2001 until 2011. Krzysztof was also editor of the Kosmos – Tajemnice Wszechświata astronomy magazine. He collaborates with the science section of the Polish Press Agency and is editor of Urania – Postępy Astronomii astronomy magazine. While his main specialisation is communicating astronomy through written text and over the internet, he has taken part in many other activities, including leading guided tours at an astronomical observatory, giving lectures for school students and amateur astronomers, participating in science festivals and bringing exciting international projects in education and the communication of astronomy to Poland. |
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PortugalESO mini-site: http://www.eso.org/public/portugal/ 
Dr. Margarida Serote RoosInstituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço Margarida Serote holds a PhD in astrophysics (University of Paris 7, 1996). Her main research field concerned extragalactic astronomy, namely the study of active galactic nuclei in terms of their stellar populations. She has also worked on large-scale structures, trying to understand the effects of redshift and environment in clusters of galaxies. For almost 14 years Margarida worked as a scientist at the Paris–Meudon Observatory, France, and afterwards at the Lisbon Observatory, Portugal. She has been actively promoting astronomy to the public ever since she started her undergraduate studies in 1986, by giving talks, courses, leading planetarium shows and writing popular articles. For four years she edited a monthly publication of the Lisbon Observatory, distributed on a national level to all secondary schools and was a founding member of the Portuguese Astronomical Society. More recently she has started working as a film producer. Together with her husband, she runs a small film company called Lightcurve Films. They have produced over 35 films, mostly on topics related to astrophysics, often with an educational angle and aimed at younger students and a general audience. Margarida also translates scientific books. |
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SpainESO mini-site: http://www.eso.org/public/spain/
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SwedenESO mini-site: http://www.eso.org/public/sweden/ 
Johan WarellLindby 229 Johan has a lifelong interest in astronomy. He studied astronomy at Uppsala University and completed his PhD in 2003, after which he spent his post doc at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Tucson and the Max-Planck Institut für Aeronomie in Katlenburg-Lindau. His main research focus was the mineralogy, light scattering and grain properties of the regoliths of Mercury, the Moon and minor bodies. As an assistant professor in Uppsala he managed the operations of the Westerlund Telescope and the public outreach activities at the Department of Astronomy and Space Physics. Since 2010 he has been the science and technology editor at Nationalencyklopedin in Malmö, working with digital encyclopedias and teaching services. He also writes and produces online primary and high school curriculum courses in physics and technology. His amateur astronomical interest started in the third grade when he learned from his school teacher that "light can travel seven times around the Earth in the same time you say 'bag'." Since 2003 he has been president of the Swedish Amateur Astronomical Society (www.saaf.se), managing the web page and the quarterly journal Telescopium. He operates a private observatory, concentrating on observations of planets, comets, occultations and the deep sky. He shares his data with international organisations, participates in pro-am projects such as JunoCam for the Juno mission, and is assistant administrator for the COBS comet database. Johan lives with his family in rural Skåne in the southernmost part of Sweden. While not under the stars, he enjoys practical meteorology and science fiction, spending time in nature, playing squash and tinkering with home improvement or telescope projects in the workshop. |
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SwitzerlandESO mini-site: http://www.eso.org/public/switzerland/ 
Nicolas CrettonLiceo di Lugano 2 Nicolas studied physics at Geneva University, and specialised in astrophysics/astronomy at the Geneva Observatory. He graduated in 1993 and started a PhD with Professor P.T. de Zeeuw at Leiden University (The Netherlands). He worked on the construction of computer dynamical models for elliptical galaxies. Once this powerful tool was finished and tested, he applied it to several galaxies and showed that the observed stellar velocities could not be explained without the presence of dark matter, either in the form of supermassive central black holes (as for M32, the dwarf companion of the Andromeda Galaxy) or extended massive dark halos (as for NGC 2434). His main collaborators were H.-W. Rix, R.P. van der Marel and F. van den Bosch. After completing his PhD, he went to the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) in Heidelberg in a post-doctoral position for two years. In 2001 he took up a fellowship at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Munich. In parallel to his ongoing research, Nicolas worked on a multi-fibre instrument for the VLT, Flames, which feeds two spectrographs, GIRAFFE and UVES. At the end of 2004, Nicolas moved to Lugano and became a high school physics teacher at the Liceo di Lugano 2. During his first year of teaching, he studied pedagogy in the Alta Scuola Pedagogica of Locarno and graduated in the summer of 2005. In his free time, Nicolas enjoys biking, reading books, including comic books, playing video games. He is also interested in global warming, astrobiology, human origins and debating. |
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United KingdomESO mini-site: http://www.eso.org/public/unitedkingdom/ 
Hayley Vice STFC International & Research Programme Media Officer
Hayley is the main press and media lead for ESO in the United Kingdom, with a degree in communications and years of PR experience. Hayley liaises with UK university press teams to promote astronomy research findings and the many design and construction milestones the UK is contributing to on the various projects currently on-going in Chile. Hayley works within the media team at the UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and promotes the work of ESO through their media contacts, social media channels and public engagement activities. STFC is part of UK Research and Innovation – the UK body which works in partnership with universities, research organizations, businesses, charities, and government to create the best possible environment for research and innovation to flourish. Becky Parker-EllisInternational and Research Programme Media Manager Jake Gilmore
Co-Head of Communications |
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BrazilESO mini-site: http://www.eso.org/public/brazil/ 
Dr Eugênio Reis NetoOlimpíada Brasileira de Astronomia e Astronáutica — Instituto de Física - UERJ (Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro) Eugênio has a Master's degree in Astronomy and a PhD in Geophysics (2009) from the Observatório Nacional in Rio de Janeiro, having designed and developed a heliometer, a special solar telescope that accurately measures small variations in the diameter of the Sun's photosphere. In the last 5 years Eugênio has worked as a Coordinator of Science Education at the Museu de Astronomia e Ciências Afins (MAST) in Rio de Janeiro, working mainly in the following areas: lectures, seminars and workshops, with emphasis on dissemination and popularisation of science; organisation, coordination and realisation of scientific popularisation events in cities in the state of Rio de Janeiro; programs of continuing development for teachers and for graduate or undergraduate students; and the development of teaching materials specially designed for younger learners. Eugênio is the National Vice-coordinator of the Brazilian Astronomy and Astronautics Olympiad (OBA), a scientific Olympiad in which about 750,000 elementary and high schools students from all over Brazil participate. He is also responsible for the selection and training of the students for the Latin American Astronomy and Astronautics Olympiad (OLAA) and for the International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA). |
ChileESO mini-site: http://www.eso.org/public/chile/ 
Francisco RodríguezESO Santiago Office – |
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AustraliaESO mini-site: http://www.eso.org/public/australia/ Dr. Stuart Ryder
Program Manager, Astronomy Australia Limited Phone: +61 3 9850 9372 (office) Stuart Ryder is based in Sydney, Australia and works for Astronomy Australia Ltd (AAL) as a Program Manager supporting Australia’s engagement with ESO. AAL is a not-for-profit company that aims to provide Australian astronomers with access to world-class national and international astronomy research infrastructure. Stuart holds a PhD in astrophysics from the Australian National University. His research focuses on the discovery and evolution of core-collapse supernovae, as well as identifying their progenitor stars. Before joining AAL in 2018, Stuart managed the Australian Astronomical Observatory’s International Telescopes Support Office, coordinating Australian access to telescopes including Gemini, Magellan, Keck, and Subaru. Stuart is also an Adjunct Fellow with Macquarie University. He regularly participates in outreach activities, and has led total solar eclipse viewing expeditions to Mexico, Chile, Mongolia, the Caribbean, Turkey, China, Australia, and the USA. Dr. Tanya Hill
Melbourne Planetarium, Scienceworks Public Phone Number: +61 400 130 675 Dr Tanya Hill has been the Astronomer for the Melbourne Planetarium since it opened at Scienceworks in 1999. She holds a PhD in astrophysics from the University of Sydney, where she searched for supermassive black holes within a sample of 25 galaxies. For her research, she has used a range of Australian telescopes including the Anglo-Australian Telescope, the Australia Telescope Compact Array, the Parkes Radio Telescope, and NASA’s Tidbinbilla Radio Telescope located in the ACT. While studying for her PhD, Tanya also worked as a Guide Lecturer at Sydney Observatory, which ignited her passion for science communication. She has produced more than a dozen planetarium shows and Melbourne Planetarium productions can now be seen across 15 countries around the world. One of her favourites is Black Holes: Journey into the Unknown which draws together research from her postgraduate studies to bring to life all that is fascinating and extreme in the world black holes. Dr. Mita Brierley
Project Officer, Astronomy Australia Limited Phone: +61 3 9214 8012 (office) Mita Brierley is based in Melbourne, Australia and works for Astronomy Australia Ltd (AAL) as their Project Officer. AAL is a not-for-profit company that aims to provide Australian astronomers with access to world-class national and international astronomy research infrastructure. Mita holds a PhD in astrophysics from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, where her research focused on determining global properties of extra-galactic globular clusters, which can be used as tracers for galactic evolution. Mita has been interested in astronomy and astronomy outreach from a very young age. Her first job during high-school was as a planetarium presenter and telescope operator at the Carter Observatory in Wellington, New Zealand. Throughout her undergraduate and graduate years, she was heavily involved in a wide range of outreach activities: from running public telescope-viewing sessions, to giving talks and running activity sessions at primary and secondary schools, to presenting public lectures to general audiences. After completing her PhD, she continued at the University of Canterbury as a lecturer in undergraduate physics and astronomy until her move to Australia in 2011. |
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HungaryESO mini-site: http://www.eso.org/public/hungary/ Róbert Szabó
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IcelandESO mini-site: http://www.eso.org/public/iceland/ 
Sævar Helgi BragasonCenter for Astrophysics and Cosmology Sævar was born on 17 April 1984 in Reykjavik, Iceland. Fascinated by astronomy for as long as he can remember, he became hooked when he saw Saturn through a telescope for the first time at a very young age. Sævar did not head straight to university after he finished high school, but became a high school teacher in physics and astronomy for two years. After that, he started undergraduate studies in geology at the University of Iceland, with the aim of becoming a planetary geologist, but he soon discovered that his heart belonged to astrophysics. Therefore, he decided to start studying astrophysics in Denmark in late 2011. He is mostly fascinated by observational astrophysics, and the search for exoplanets in particular. Along with his studies, Sævar works as a science communicator/Public Information Officer for the Centre of Astrophysics and Cosmology at the University of Iceland. He is also an editor of the Icelandic astronomy website http://www.stjornuskodun.is and chairman of the Amateur Astronomical Society. He runs a small company called Sjónaukar.is which specialises in selling telescopes and other equipment for stargazers. Other interests involve hiking, travelling, playing and watching football (a passionate Liverpool fan), photography and relaxing in front of his HDTV. He loves seeing the Universe with his own eyes, but his greatest joy is watching his son growing up. 31 December 2010 was the best day of his life — when he witnessed his fiancée give birth to their son. |
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NorwayESO min-site: http://www.eso.org/public/norway/ 
Maria HammerstrømUniversity of Oslo Maria has a Master’s Degree in Astrophysics from the University of Oslo, Norway. She is also an astronomy blogger and a graphic designer. Visit Maria’s personal web page. |
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RussiaESO mini-site: http://www.eso.org/public/russia/ 
Dr. Kirill MaslennikovThe Central (Pulkovo) Astronomical Observatory of Russian Academy of Sciences |
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TurkeyESO mini-site: http://www.eso.org/public/turkey/ 
Arif SolmazUniversity of Cag |
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United StatesESO mini-site: http://www.eso.org/public/usa/ 
Dr. Paola RebuscoESO Science Outreach Network |
