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Barbara Ercolano becomes Max Planck Fellow at MPE

ORIGINS scientist Prof. Dr. Barbara Ercolano will become a ‘Max Planck Fellow’ at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE), where she will work with Prof. Dr. Paola Caselli's ‘Astrochemistry’ group to study the regions where exoplanets are born. She is currently working at the University Observatory Munich and will use this joint position to strengthen the collaboration between the Max Planck Society (MPG), the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) and the ORIGINS Cluster of Excellence.

Image shows portrait of Barbara Ercolano.

Barbara Ercolano is now Max Planck Fellow at MPE. Image: LMU

Barbara Ercolano is Professor for Theoretical Astrophysics at the LMU University Observatory in Munich since December 2010 and and has coordinated research on exoplanets since 2011, initially in the Excellence Cluster Universe and since 2019 in the connector ‘Planets and other Habitats’ of the Excellence Cluster ORIGINS. In addition, Barbara Ercolano is spokesperson of the DFG Research Unit Transition Discs (RUTD).

Expertise in magneto-hydrodynamic modelling

As a Max Planck Fellow at MPE, she will work with the Center for Astrochemical Studies (CAS) group of Paola Caselli on questions related to protoplanetary discs. In particular, she will contribute her expertise in magneto-hydrodynamic modelling of the gaseous component of the discs to understand the interaction with the chemistry and microphysics of these environments.

Barbara Ercolano received her doctoral degree from the University College London and successively held research positions at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge (MA, USA), an STFC Advanced Fellowship at the Institute of Astronomy of Cambridge University and University College London (UK). For a brief period, she was a lecturer at the University of Exeter (UK) before coming to the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität in Munich in 2010, where she is Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics at the University Observatory. Among other prizes, in 2010 she received the Fowler Prize for Astronomy for early career achievements from the Royal Astronomical Society in 2010 for developing the MOCASSIN code.

Press release of the MPE

 

Contact:
Prof. Barbara Ercolano
LMU Munich / ORIGINS Excellence Cluster
Email: ercolano(at)usm.lmu.de