Winner of Summer AstroCamp 2017 Bursary Announced

The winner of the AstroCamp 2017 bursary offered by ESO has now been selected from almost 100 applications from about a dozen countries. ESO is delighted to announce that Eva Forrest from the United Kingdom is the winner of the ESO bursary.

The standard of applications was extremely high, from a variety of enthusiastic future scientists and engineers keen to attend this year’s camp. The ESO bursary covers the full cost of the camp, providing Eva with financial assistance to participate in this potentially career-defining event.

AstroCamp is an academic programme devoted to astronomy and physics, organised by the Centre for Astrophysics of the University of Porto (CAUP) and the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences. The camp will take place from 6 to 20 August 2017 in northern Portugal, at the Centre for Environmental Education and Interpretation of the Corno de Bico Protected Landscape. The program is intended for secondary school students from European Union countries, in one of their final three years of education before university.

Over the two weeks of the camp, the students will take courses on relativity and on the physics of stars, galaxies and the Universe as a whole, have Skype conversations with researchers from different countries, work on a programming project using Type Ia Supernova data to show that the Universe is accelerating, and take part in night-time astronomical observation sessions. Social activities such as hiking, sports, community service activities, and film and documentary sessions will also contribute to making the camp a fun and enriching experience. In total, the camp will accommodate 16 secondary school students aged between 15 and 19.

Courtesy of European Southern Observatory