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MOU to Strengthen Links
The principal purpose of this MOU is to facilitate collaboration between the astronomers of the Australian Telescope National Facility (ATNF) and the astronomers of the Universidad de Chile (UChile). Working together, these two institutions can have a major impact in observational astronomy in the Southern Hemisphere.
The main method for encouraging collaboration between ATNF and UChile will be through the interchange of researchers, Professors and students. Astronomers who come from one institution will be appointed as Visiting Scientist in the host institution. Joint ATNF/UChile research projects utilizing Australian facilities and those built in Chile will be particularly encouraged .
Background
The Australia Telescope is a National Facility operated by ATNF, which is a division of CSIRO, Australia's premier government funded research organisation. It consists of the Compact Array at Narrabri and the Parkes and Mopra radio telescopes. ATNF is also part of the international collaboration to build ASKAP, the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, a state-of-the-art wide-field radio telescope array operating in the 1-GHz frequency range. It will be built in Western Australia for completion in 2012. The ATNF Astrophysics group includes more than 30 PhD students and 20 research staff who carry out research in a broad range of disciplines.
The Department of Astronomy at UChile is part of the Faculty of Physics Science and Mathematics. The Department holds a strong tradition of astronomical research and education, with a total of 30 academic staff and researchers as well more than 20 post-graduate students. A major part of the astronomical research carried out by UChile utilises the International observatories built in the northern part of the Chile, which are home to the world's best optical infrared and millimetre telescopes including ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimetre Array. Once ALMA is operational in 2012 it will offer unprecedented millimetre-observing capabilities for the Southern Hemisphere. UChile acknowledges that astronomers from its Department of Astronomy have access to all astronomical facilities built in Chile. Chile, as host Nation, has a guaranteed 10 percent of all observing time at these facilities.
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Australis Fellow
Under the MOU between ATNF and UChile a program of joint postdoctoral fellowships has been established. The fellowship takes the name of Australis Fellow, a Latin word referring to the south, which is meant to symbolize the astronomical research in the Southern Hemisphere that the ATNF/UChile Australis Fellow will carry out.
A call for applicants for the first Australis Fellowship (2008) is currently open.
Student co-supervision
ATNF welcomes Andres Guzman to the ATNF co-supervised student program. Andres is a student at the Department of Astronomy at UChile and has been awarded an ATNF Graduate Student Research Scholarship. For his thesis he will be working on the early phases of massive star formation under the supervision of Prof. Guido Garay (UChile) and Dr Kate Brooks (ATNF). 2 April 2008
Department of Astronomy UChile located at Cerro Calan Observatory, Santiago, Chile |
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