With the participation of Catherine Cesarsky (Chair of the Board of the SKA Organisation) we are pleased to invite you to participate to the third Swiss SKA days. During this exciting 2-day event we will discuss the ambitious SKA radio-astronomy project at the edges of advanced technology and computing.
Later this 2018, SKA will become an Inter-Governmental Organisation (alike CERN,ESA,ESO …) with a plan to build in the next years two major interferometric radio observatory located in South Africa and Western Australian.
Switzerland has currently an observer position in the SKA project and is considering from 2021 on a participation as a SKA member. The SKA Days 2018 will for the first time invite interested Swiss companies to discuss potential involvement in the construction of the observatory.
The third Swiss SKA meeting took place on June 11 and 12 at FHNW near Zurich.
Venue
The venue is hosted by the Institute for Data Science FHNW, at the Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz, or University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland. It is located in the Campus Brugg-Windisch. The meeting took place in Building 1, at the Address Klosterzelgstrasse 2, 5210 Windisch:
Agenda & Presentations
Monday 11 June 2018
10h20-12h30 Introduction Session – Chair: Daniel Schaerer [Room 1.047]
- 10h20: Jean-Paul Kneib (EPFL): Welcome and Logistics
- 10h30: André Csillaghy (FHNW): Welcome and Presentation of the FHNW
- 10h40: Anton Demarmels (SwissMEM): Welcome by SwissMEM
- 10h50: Catherine Cesarsky [Chair of the Board of the SKA Organisation]: The SKA Project
- 11h20: Simon Berry [SKA]: SKA Organisation Status
- 11h40: Xavier Reymond (SERI): Views from SERI
- 11h50: Fernando Camilo/Oleg Smirnov (SKA South Africa) Progress and Science with Meerkat
- 12h10: Pascal Rochat (Spectratime, CH) Atomic clocks technologies
12h30-14h00 Standing Lunch
Parallel Sessions: SKA in Europe – Chair: Tyler Bourke [Room 1.047]
- 14h00: Miroslav Pantaleev (Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden): SKA Wide Band Single Pixel Advanced Instrumentation Program & SKA Status in Sweden
- 14h20: Mark Sargent (U. of Sussex, UK): SKA, the synchrotron continuum star-formation rate machine: prying open the black box & SKA Status in UK
- 14h40: Chiara Ferrari (OCA, France): The French community towards the Square Kilometre Array
- 15h00: Carole Jackson (DG ASTRON, NL): ASTRON & the Netherlands national facilities in the SKA era
- 15h20: Isabella Prandoni (INAF, Italy): Radio-astronomy and SKA-related Activities in Italy
15h40-16h10 Coffee Break
- 16h10: Jean-Paul Kneib (EPFL): SKA Swiss Activities
- 16h20: Domingos Da Silva Barbosa (IT, Portugal): SKA in Portugal
- 16h30-17h: Discussion
Parallel Sessions: Swiss industry interest in SKA: Chair Simon Berry [Room 1.045]
- 14h00 Ian Hastings (SKA Head of Procurement): The SKA procurement plan
- 14h30 CSCS: by Michele De Lorenzi (Deputy Director)
- 14h45 Orolia/Spectratime/T4Science: by Pascal Rochat (Managing Director)
- 15h00APCO technologies: by Louis Comtesse (Technical Account Manager)
- 15h15 Viasat: by Ferdinando Tiezzi (Director of Business Development)
- 15h30 IBM-Research: by Paul Hurley (Research Scientist): The DOME project
15h45-16h10 Coffee Break
- 16h10: CosyLab: by Diego Casadei (Head of Space R&D): Cosylab possible contributions to SKA telescope management
- 16h20: Solenix: by Yann Voumard (Business Manager)
- 16h30: nanoTRONIC GmBH: by Philippe Hersberger (CEO): Company presentation
- 16h40: Art of Technology AG: by Klaus Ruzicka (Senior Engineer): Innovative Electronics – Design and Development Services
- 16h50: Kandou Bus: by Amin Shokrollahi (CEO): Ultra high bandwidth chip-to-chip links at low power
- 17h00: /repository/default/content/sites/ska/files/2018june_Ateleris.pdfAteleris: by Etesi Laszlo (Managing Director)
- 17h10: Koegl Space: By Stefan Koegl (Managing director)
18h00-20h00 Standing Dinner along SKA outreach activities
20h00-21h30 Public Talk by Kevin Schawinski (ETHZ): “Wie wir mit künstlicher Intelligenz das Universum erkunden”
Tuesday 12 June 2018
9h-10h30 Session on SKA Astrophysics Science: Chair Jean-Paul Kneib [Room 1.047]
- 9h00: Tyler Bourke (SKA Project Science group): SKA Science and planning
- 9h20: Baerbel Koribalski (CSIRO): The Australian SKA Pathfinder: update and early science
- 9h40: Tom Oosterloo (ASTRON): The HI search for the smallest galaxies: present and future
- 10h00:Alexandre Refregier (ETHZ): Cosmology with Neutral Hydrogen
- 10h20:Yves Revaz (EPFL): Modeling dwarf galaxies: a critical stepping stone towards the simulation of the Epoch of Reionization
10h40-11h05 Coffee break
11h05-12h40 Session on SKA Data Science: Chair André Csillaghy [Room 1.047]
- 11h:05: Miles Deegan (SKA, HPC Specialist and SDP Engineer): SKA Computing Challenges
- 11h25: Paul Hurley (IBM-Zurich): “Bluebild”: An accurate, flexible imager and its efficient implementation
- 11h40: Oleg Smirnov (SKA, SA): The interferometric imaging challenge: MeerKAT towards SKA
- 11h55: Yves Wiaux (Heriot Watt/EPFL): Wide-Band Radio-interferometric imaging in the SKA era
- 12h10: Claudio Gheller (CSCS): HPC and Data Services for Science at CSCS
- 12h25: Martin Melchior (FHNW) Platform for Benchmarking Algorithms for SKA
12h40-14h00 Standing Lunch
Parallel Sessions
14h-16h00 Astrophysics Session: Chairs Tyler Bourke & Alexandre Refregier [Room 1.047]
- 14h00 Kevin Schawinski (ETHZ) space.ml: New Approaches to AI Astrophysics
- 14h15 Mona Jalivand (UniGE) Weak lensing of 21cm intensity mapping
- 14h30 Miroslova Dessauges (UniGE): Giant molecular clouds seen 8 billion years ago
- 14h45 Jennifer Schober (EPFL): Origin and evolution of cosmic magnetic fields
- 15h00 Susanne Wampfler (CSH, UniBE): Isotope astrochemistry with ALMA and perspectives for SKA
- 15h15 Prasenjit Saha (UniZH) Pulsars as a probe of relativistic spacetime and dark matter in the Galactic center
- 15h30 Rohit Sharma (NCRA, TIFR, Pune India): Quantifying weak solar emission at low radio frequency from MWA.
14h-16h00 Data Science Session: Chairs Miles Deegan & Paul Hurley [Room 1.045]
- 14h00 Muhammad Saad (UniZH): ASKAP DATA Processing using Apache Flink streaming platform
- 14h20 Simeoni (EPFL/IBM-Research): Bluebild with Flexibeam: A New Paradigm for Multi-beam Observations for the SKA
- 14h40 Sepand Kashani (IBM Research): Pypeline : A fast open-source package for advanced imaging with Bluebild
- 15h00 Discussion
List of Registered Participants
As of June 6, 2018
| Name | First Name | Affiliation | Position |
| Abou-Mansour | Eliane | Service Recherche UNIGE | Responsable du Pôle Lémanique et National |
| Amin | Moshurl | Bangladesh Astronomical Association | Chairman |
| Angelopoulos | Vasileios | LASTRO EPFL | Ph.D. Candidate |
| Ashena | Narges | University of Zurich | PhD student |
| Audard | Marc | University of Geneva | MER |
| Benz | Arnold | FHNW Windisch and ETH Zurich | Emeritus Professor |
| Berry | Simon | SKA Organisation | Director of Strategy |
| Blazek | Jonathan | EPFL | Ambizione Postdoctoral Fellow |
| Bolzern | Roman | i4Ds | research assistant |
| Bourke | Tyler | SKAO | Project Scientist |
| Casadei | Diego | Cosylab Switzerland | Head of Space R&D |
| Cesarsky | Catherine | CEA | SKA Board Director |
| Comtesse | Louis | APCO Technologies SA | Technical Account Manager |
| Courbin | Frederic | EPFL | Professor |
| Csillaghy | André | FHNW | Head Institute for Data Science |
| De Lorenzi | Michele | CSCS | Deputy Director |
| Deegan | Miles | SKA Organisation | HPC Specialist |
| DEGUILLAUME | Frédéric | SICPA | Senior Researcher (PhD) |
| Dell’Aglio | Daniele | University of Zurich | Postdoc |
| Demarmels | Anton | SwissMEM | Innovation and Technology Management |
| Dessauges-Zavadsky | Miroslava | Geneva Observatory | Collaboratrice Scientifique |
| Etesi | Laszlo | Ateleris GmbH | Managing Director |
| Felix | Simon | FHNW | Senior Researcher |
| Ferrari | Chiara | OCA | Astronomer, SKA-France Director |
| Froidevaux | Sylvère | T4Science SA | COO |
| Garnier | William | SKA Organisation | Director of Communications |
| Gheller | Claudio | ETHZ CSCS | Computation Scientist |
| Hastings | Ian | SKA Organisation | Head of Procurement |
| Hersberger | Philippe | nanoTRONIC GmbH | Ceo |
| Huber | Martin C.E. | ETHZ/ESA | retired |
| Hurley | Paul | IBM Research | Research Scientist |
| Huwyler | Cédric | Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz FHNW | Postdoctoral Researcher |
| Jablonka | Pascale | EPFL | Dr Prf |
| Jackson | Carole | ASTRON | Director General |
| Jalilvand | Mona | University of Geneva | PhD student |
| Jiang | Ming | EPFL | Scientific collaborator |
| Kashani | Sepand | IBM Research | Research Scientist |
| Kneib | Jean-Paul | EPFL | Director Laboratory of Astrophysics |
| Koribalski | Baerbel | CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science | senior research scientist |
| Küttel | Olivier | EPFL | Head International Affairs |
| Lapadula | Katja | FHNW | Admin/Project Office I4DS/IIT |
| Lastufka | Erica | FHNW | PhD student |
| Magun | Andreas | retired solar radioastronomer | retired |
| Marcin | Simon | FHNW | Research Assistant |
| Melchior | Martin | FHNW | Professor FHNW |
| molendini | Francesca | FHNW | senior reserach associate |
| Nath-M | Ranjana | iThEC | Nuclear Energy scientist |
| Oosterloo | Tom | Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy | Senior Scientist |
| Pantaleev | Miroslav | Onsala Space Observatory, Chalmers University of Technology | Head of the Electronics Laboratory |
| Pfenniger | Daniel | University of Geneva | prof. |
| Prandoni | Isabella | INAF | Research staff |
| Refregier | Alexander | ETHZ | Prof. Dr. Alexandre Refregier; Deputy head of Inst. Particle Physics and Astrophysics |
| Revaz | Yves | EPFL | Scientist |
| Reymond | Xavier | SERI | Head of Unit International Research Organisations |
| Rivkin | Lenny | Paul Scherrer Institut (CH) and EPFL | PSI Deputy Director |
| Rochat | Pascal | Orolia / Spectratime / T4Science | Managing Director |
| Roger | Thibaut | Universität Bern | PhD Student |
| Ruzicka | Klaus | Art of Technology AG | Senior Engineer |
| Saad | Muhammad | University of Zurich | PhD student |
| Saha | Prasenjit | University of Zurich | Titular Professor |
| Sargent | Mark | U. of Sussex | Senior Lecturer in Astronomy |
| Sathiapal | Hanna | FHNW | Science Communication |
| Schaerer | Daniel | Geneva Observatory, University of Geneva | Prof |
| Schawinski | Kevin | ETHZ | Assistant Professor |
| Schmid | Rolf | Art of Technology AG | Managing Director |
| Schmutz | Werner | PMOD/WRC | Director |
| Schober | Jennifer | LASTRO, EPFL | postdoctoral fellow |
| Sharma | Rohit | National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Pune, India | Research Scholar |
| Shokrollahi | Amin | Kandou Bus, and EPFL | CEO |
| Simeoni | Matthieu | IBM/EPFL | PhD Student at IBM (Paul Hurley’s group) |
| Smirnov | Oleg | Rhodes University & SKA SA | SKA Research Chair / Manager, Radio Astronomy Research Group |
| Tiezzi | Ferdinando | Viasat | Business Development Director |
| Valkenburg | Wessel | EPFL | postdoc |
| Voumard | Yann | Solenix Schweiz GmbH | Business Manager Switzerland |
| Wampfler | Susanne | Center for Space and Habitability, University of Bern | CSH Fellow/Postdoctoral researcher |
| Wiaux | Yves | Heriot Watt | Professor |