Severo Ochoa Programme

Occident Foundation visitors

Occident Foundation Logo1

The IAC has been chosen by the Occident Foundation to participate in its “Visiting Researchers Programme”. On 15 December 2022 the Agreement with the Occident Foundation for collaboration in the "Occident Foundation - Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias visiting researcher programme" was published in the Official State Gazette (BOE) no. 300. This agreement involves the creation of a joint programme between the two entities for the period 2023-2025 with the aim of attracting visiting professors and researchers of outstanding international prestige to carry out short stays of one to three months at the IAC with the objective, on the one hand, of deepening the scientific relationship between the host research group and the visiting researcher's centre and, on the other, of initiating possible lines of joint action aimed at generating new scientific interests. 

In April 2023 an Addendum was made to modify the Agreement between the Occident Foundation and the IAC to include high-profile engineers as part of the visiting researcher programme. 

Each year, the programme supports stay of one - three months at the IAC for visiting professors, researchers of international prestige, and high-profile engineers. 

Within the framework of this mobility programme, the Severo Ochoa Coordination Committee (CCSO), in charge of the coordination, management and monitoring of the aforementioned agreement, proposed to the Occident Foundation a list of possible visiting researchers / professors / engineers for the year 2023, which was approved and has been implemented. 

The funding scheme offered by the Occident Foundation consists of: maximum funding of 3000 euros /month. This scheme will accommodate to the standard rules of the IAC for "Bolsas de Viaje para Visitantes". In any case diets to be claimed shall refer to those in force in national territory according to Royal Decree 462/2002. According to this Royal Decree, the visiting researcher with a longer stay of one month, could be reimbursed with up to 80% of the maximum per diem, i.e 2400 €/month for accommodation & subsistence, not being necessary invoices related to such concepts.

Since the Occident Foundation-IAC collaboration began in 2014, about 50 scientists have already participated in this programme.

Researchers who have visited the IAC under this programme -or will visit it in the near future- are listed below:

  • DR. CARLOS JOSÉ DÍAZ BASO
    DR. CARLOS JOSÉ DÍAZ BASO
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    Dr. Carlos José Díaz Baso earned his PhD in Astrophysics from the University of La Laguna in 2018. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at RoCS (Rosseland Centre for Solar Physics). His main research interests include Bayesian statistics, deep learning, and solar physics. His work focuses on understanding solar chromospheric phenomena (ranging
  • DR. MARC PINSONNEAULT
    DR. MARC PINSONNEAULT (The Ohio State University)
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    Dr. Marc Pinsonneault, Professor from The Ohio State University. The goals of Marc’s visit are two-fold. The first one is to progress on the Kepler Legacy red giant catalog to provide the largest catalog of red giants with seismic detections and characterization (mass, radius, age) by combining Kepler observations and Gaia. In particular, this
  • DR. ROB FENDER
    DR. ROB FENDER (University of Oxford)
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    Prof. Rob Fender’s research interests focus on accretion and feedback around relativistic objects, such as black holes and neutron stars, primarily advanced through observations with radio telescopes such as AMI-LA, e-MERLIN, and MeerKAT. He also participates in wide-field commensal searches for radio transients. He recently served as the Head of
  • DR. THOMAS HENNING
    DR. THOMAS HENNING (Max Planck Institut für Astronomie Heidelberg)
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    Professor Henning, Director Emeritus of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg and Professor at the University of Heidelberg is recognized as one of the leading European experts on protoplanetary disks and exoplanetary systems. Thomas Henning studies the formation of stars and planets through dedicated observing programs on infrared
  • Dr. Benjamin Grinstein
    DR. BENJAMIN GRINSTEIN (Universidad de California San Diego)
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    Dr. Benjamin Grinstein received his PhD in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics from Harvard University in 1984. He is currently the Chairman of the Department of Physics and Distinguished Professor at the University of California. His speciality is theoretical physics and he has pioneered the construction and exploitation of several Effective
  • Dr. Joachim Puls
    DR. JOAQUIM PULS (University Observatory, Munich)
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    Dr. Joachim Puls is renowned for his research on stellar winds in high-mass stars. He has also done fundamental research on the modelling of the expanding atmospheres of these stars. He has also worked on the determination of nitrogen abundances on the surfaces of O-type stars, which is a key element in testing current evolutionary calculations for