T. Santana-Ros

GREAT-ITN, PhD I obtained my PhD from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan (Poland) as a GREAT-ITN student (FP7 Marie Curie programme, 264895). My research focused on the development of tools (software) for the analysis of photometry of asteroids gathered by Gaia. In collaboration with the Gaia-Data Processing Consortium (Gaia-DPAC) I developed tools for data simulation of Gaia observations of asteroids. The results of the analysis of a large dataset were published in Santana-Ros et al. 2015 (Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society), showing that it will be possible to obtain more than 50.000 asteroid shape models using only Gaia data (while only 1000 models are available today). This will allow to answer open questions about the evolution and origin of the Solar System. GAIA-GOSA project For some particular asteroids, it is also useful to gather additional ground-based observations, in order to study their main physical properties (volume, mass and hence bulk-density and composition). For this reason I led the development of the Gaia-GOSA (www.gaiagosa.eu, Santana-Ros et al. 2014) interactive service (work funded by the European Space Agency, ESA). This tool is available for the whole community of observers, and helps them preparing and coordinating observations of selected asteroids in support of scientific projects. The service counts with more than 150 observers registered, and almost 1000 lightcurves gathered. POST-DOC: SBNAF (H2020-COMPET-2015) From 2016 to 2018, I was a researcher post-doc in the Small Bodies: Near and Far (SBNAF) project (PI: T. Müller, 2016-2019; Grant Agreement No. 687378). The SBNAF project is included 15 scientists from institutes in Granada, Spain, Budapest, Hungary, Poznań, Poland, and Germany. We collaborated to characterize a selection of asteroids which were of particular scientific interest. For this goal we used data from space telescopes such as Herschel and Gaia (ESA) and Kepler (NASA), as well as ground-based observations from an international network of observers. Moreover, I was the coordinator of an international observing campaign in support of the HARISSA observing project with the 8.2 m Very Large Telescope (Vernazza et al. 2020, Marsset et al. 2020, Nature Astronomy). EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY From 2018 to 2019 I worked as NEO Test and Validation Engineer at the Planetary Defense Office of the European Space Agency (ESA), in Darmstadt (Germany). Despite not being a research position, I was in daily contact with observations of NEOs, which allowed me to learn about astrometric analysis and orbit determination. APOSTD, UNIVERSITY OF ALICANTE In 2019, I was granted an APOSTD fellowship (proposal ranked 98/100 on competitive call). My scientific career start focusing on NEOs while being part of the Planetary Science group of the UA with an intense collaboration with the ESA-NEOCC. I was selected for the DART mission science group and published several papers on NEOs, including the discovery of the second Earth Trojan Asteroid (Santana-Ros et al. 2022, Nature Comm.) NEO-MAPP, UNIVERSITY OF ALICANTE In 2022 I was hired by the EU-NEO-MAPP team (H2020-870377) to work on NEO characterisation in preparation for the Hera mission of the European Space Agency.