Gruber Foundation supports third fellow with the International Astronomical Union

The Gruber Foundation has given support to a third early-career astrophysicist through the Gruber Fellowship program. 

The third fellowship award winner for the year of 2020 is Ioannis Liodakis, of the Finnish Centre for Astronomy with ESO (FINCA), University of Turku.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) and the Gruber Foundation established the Gruber Fellowship in 2011. Each year, it is granted to help promising young researchers in astrophysics. The grant funding available has been $50,000 annually, but in 2020, the selection committee chose to award the funding to two researchers, giving Gabriela Calistro Rivera and Anupam Bhardwjand each $25,000 for travel, subsistence and research expenses to supplement a postdoctoral appointment, according to a press release from AAS.

This year, The Gruber Foundation increased the annual funding for the fellowship, and the IAU Gruber Fellowship selection committee chose Liodakis to obtain the additional US$25 000.

Liodakis has a postdoctoral appointment studying the emission processes in blazars, a subclass of active galactic nuclei that host the most massive black holes at their centers and produce highly relativistic jets. He plans to use a portion of the fellowship to promote diversity and inclusion within astronomy through international visitor programs at FINCA, having previously led similar projects at Stanford University.

“I am greatly honored to be selected as one of the 2020 TGF fellows,” Liodakis said in the press release. “It is incredibly rewarding to see my work recognized by the community. The Gruber Fellowship will not only support my research but will also allow me to continue my efforts to increase diversity and inclusion in astrophysics, by supporting collaborative trips from researchers in typically underrepresented countries.”

In the future, the selection committee will decide whether to award the amount of US$75 000 to a single researcher, or to share it between two or three candidates. The next Gruber Fellowship in astronomy will be awarded in 2021.