17-12-2024: Dr. Junais was awarded with the prestigious Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship by AIP.
Dr. Junais has been selected for a prestigious Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship, a highly competitive programme that supports researchers with outstanding qualifications from around the world to carry out research in Germany. The fellowship, awarded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, will support a two-year research stay at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), Potsdam, Germany. The programme is internationally recognised for supporting excellent early-career researchers and for fostering long-term scientific collaboration through the Humboldt network. During the fellowship, Dr. Junais will work on a project focused on stellar populations and dark matter in extremely faint dwarf galaxies, combining deep imaging and integral-field spectroscopic observations to better understand their formation and evolution. By bringing together state-of-the-art observations and advanced analysis techniques, the project aims to shed new light on the baryonic and dark matter structure of these galaxies. The research will be carried out at AIP, one of the leading astrophysics research institutes in Germany.
17-06-2025: Prof. Carme Gallart was awarded with the prestigious ERC Advanced Grant by the European Research Council.
Prof. Carme Gallart, a Doctor in Physics and Research Professor at the IAC, is a key member of the research team of ExGal-Twin European project. Out of the 14 projects granted in Spain, only three are led by women researchers, with Carme being one of them.
Her project, titled “Chronology of our Galaxy from Gaia Colour-Magnitude Diagram Fitting” (ChronoGal), aims to reconstruct the formation timeline of the Milky Way. The project will leverage data from ESA's Gaia satellite, combined with spectroscopic cartography using WEAVE on the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (ORM) on La Palma, along with cosmological simulations.
09-02-2026: Dr. Eva Durán Camacho was awarded with a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions postdoctoral fellowship by the European Commission.
ExGal-Twin postdoctoral researcher Dr. Eva Durán Camacho is one of the 1,610 outstanding postdoctoral researchers selected for funding among 17,066 applicants with 95.8% in evaluation. She will be working at the Universidad de la Laguna and will allow her to stay in Tenerife for two years after her ExGal-Twin contract ends.
Her proposal QUESO (Quantifying Uniformity and Environmental Structure in Our galaxy) investigates why star formation is not uniform within the Milky Way by quantifying how molecular cloud formation and star-formation efficiency vary with galactic environment (e.g., spiral arms, central bar). She will use high-resolution numerical simulations that link global dynamics to cloud-scale turbulence, combined with direct comparisons to observations, to identify the key physical drivers of the observed scatter. QUESO will be hosted at the Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), under the supervision of Dr. Christopher Brook, a recognised leader in cosmological and galaxy formation simulations.
09-06-2026: 2026 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics awarded to partners in ExGal-Twin twinning project
The 2026 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics was awarded to Professors Vasily Belokurov from the University of Cambridge, Amina Helmi from the University of Groningen, and Rodrigo Ibata from the CNRS/Observatoire de Strasbourg. Professors Helmi and Ibata lead groups that partner in the Twinning action ExGal-Twin, coordinated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) in Spain. As such, their groups have participated in staff exchanges with IAC astronomers and in ExGal-Twin project meetings and training schools, and active collaborations between the IAC and their groups have been expanded or started.
The Kavli Prizes, awarded every two years, are comparable to the Nobel Prize in terms of monetary value, prestige and scientific rigour. The Kavli prizes were designed to complement the Nobels, and are awarded in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience.
Two of the three 2026 Laureates of the Kavli Prize in Astrophysics are active associates of the ExGal-Twin Twinning project. This provides further evidence of the strength of the Twinning programme, which allows developing institutions to constitute close-knit teams with leading counterparts in Europe. In particular, it provides the funding and project infrastructure to stimulate staff exchanges, training, and collaborations with top-level scientists such as the new Kavli Laureates.
The ExGal-Twin projects extends the warmest congratulations to the three Kavli 2026 Astrophysics Laureates, and in particular to its associates, Professors Amina Helmi and Rodrigo Ibata.
Links:
Kavli Prize announcement:
https://www.kavliprize.org/prizes/astrophysics/2026
CNRS/Obs Strasbourg press release:
https://astro.unistra.fr/en/2026/06/10/rodrigo-ibata-is-awarded-the-2026-kavli-prize/
(note: Nicolas Martin, mentioned in the press release, is deputy node leader of Obs Strabourg in ExGal-Twin)
Univ Groningen press release:
https://www.rug.nl/about-ug/latest-news/news/archief2026/nieuwsberichten/0610-amina-helmi-kavliprijs