ESERO Space Goes To School

Heidi is a PhD Astronomy student at Open University studying binary stars. Her research is focused in astronomy, astrophysics, stellar formation and evolution.
Heidi has access to and works with telescopes like Super WASP, Faulkes Telescope, ASAS-SN, South African Astronomical Observatory.

Caoimhín de Bhailís has worked as an Explainer at Blackrock Castle Observatory for 6+ years and has been staring into space with unbridled interest and enthusiasm since childhood. He has appeared on RTÉ Nuacht, TG4's Spéis sa Spás and RnG to explain astronomy in Irish as well as English.
He facilitates the Transition Year Placement program at The Observatory and leads workshops designed to give students hands-on experience with STEM education and its uses in the real world.
He is also the author of the Observatory's Monthly Newsletter Sky Matters and the principal script-writer for the Observatory's planetarium shows.

Juan has worked in space programmes at the European Space Agency (ESA) for 27 years. He has recently retired from ESA but remains passionate about space and likes talking about its contributions to society. He enjoys explaining space and the underlying Physics to young students and interested public.
Juan is Spanish, has a Masters in Industrial Engineering by the Polytechnical University of Barcelona and has worked in Germany and The Netherlands. His wife Gabrielle is Irish and they spend now a lot of time in Co. Louth.

Aoife Murphy is graduating this year from Technological University Dublin, formerly Dublin Institute of Technology, with a BE (Hons) focused in Mechanical Engineering. In 2018, she took part in ESA Academy’s Ladybird Guide to Spacecraft Operations Training Course in ESEC-Galaxia in Belgium. This summer, she took part in the first ever online Interactive Space Program (ISP) with the International Space University. She has also been recently accepted onto the Space Studies Program with the International Space University to be held next year in Granada, Spain. Aoife would like to share how she became passionate about space, her journey so far, her experience with the ESA course and the International Space University, as well as how she intends to continue pursuing a career in the space sector.

Con McCarthy of the European Space Agency will talk about the various missions that he has been involved with while working with ESA over the years.
Con worked on the European Spacelab mission, on ERS-1 Earth Observation satellite, he was Systems Engineer on Huygens, (Europe’s Lander to Titan on board the U.S. Cassini Saturn orbiter), and on ESA's Mars Lander and was the communications system manager for Europe's Mars mission, Mars Express and systems engineer on the Venus Express on its mission to Venus.

Danielle works as a Resident Astronomer and Telescope Operator at Blackrock Castle Observatory in Cork, Ireland,
and Coordinator of Space Week Ireland.

Danielle didn't originally go to school for astronomy or science; she actually has a degree in Spanish and studied several languages. Danielle found astronomy later in life.

Danielle is passionate about space and one of the main goals of her work is to communicate space, science, and astronomy to students and the public. She organizes many outreach programs throughout the year to make space accessible to as many people as possible.

Her favorite part of my job, however, is getting to use the telescope at the observatory. It's a 16" Schmidt Cassegrain Meade LX200R. Danielle works alongside the on-site Astrophysicist gathering images. The research that's done is mainly on blackholes and exoplanets but they also image other target in space to use as educational resources for schools.