February 28th, 2025 – The third MASS Winter School took place from February 25th to 28th, 2025 at the Physics Department of the Tor Vergata University of Rome. The theme of the school was “Hands-on Activity on Spectroscopic Data Reduction”; the full program is available here. The school was organized for all students of the second and third course editions.During the school some time was dedicated to the presentation of Master thesis topics from representatives of the 4 MASS Universities. Edition 2 students gave short presentations on their ongoing internship works and Master thesis plans. The MASS External Advisory Panel was invited to participate in the event. Two members, Eng. Raffaele Crapolicchio and Pece Podigachoski, PhD, were present on site, whereas Prof. Bozena Czerny and Prof. Andrew Bunker joined the online sessions. The MASS Team thanks them for their active and constructive participation.
December 27th, 2024 – MASS Edition 1 Graduations. The MASS program reached an important milestone in 2024: the first 11 students graduated from the program and many of them are already starting their PhD. Their Master theses are published in the Dissemination and Outreach section of this website.
October 25th, 2024 – The Call for Applications for admission to the fourth edition of the MASS master course (starting in September 2025) opens on October 25th, 2024. Applications must be submitted through this website (see the Application menu). The application deadline is February 14th, 2025 at 23:59 CET (UTC+1). Reference letters must be uploaded directly by recommenders upon receipt of the email invitation and not later than February 21st, 2025.
September 28th, 2024 – On the occasion of the European Researchers Night, a new MASS brochure was distributed to the Italian public. Edition 1 students contributed to it with short summaries of their Master theses. Here is the Italian version of the brochure.
September 17th, 2024 – Arrival of Edition 3 students. The newly selected MASS students are arriving these days at the Tor Vergata University of Rome for the start of the third course edition. A first information session for MASS students will be held today by the Tor Vergata University Welcome Office. The official Welcome Days that mark the start of the course will take place at the Physics Department on 24th – 26th September, 2024 and see the participation of all MASS Consortium Universities and representatives of various space agencies, research institutions and industries (MASS Third Parties). The full program is available here.
July 19th, 2024 – At the conclusion of the second MASS Summer School, Edition 1 students participated in a short competition by giving 180-seconds / 1-slide presentations of their thesis work. The first prize, consisting of a nice book on exoplanets, was awarded to the winner Aman Nadimpalli Raju, whose work focused on neural networks applied to quasars.
July 17th, 2024 – The second MASS Summer School is taking place this week at the Centre International de Valbonne (France). The school is organized by the Université Cote d’Azur on “Observational Astronomy and Data Processing”. All students from both ongoing MASS editions are participating. The school started with a guided visit to the Calern Observatory and is continuing with lectures, remote observations with the telescopes at the Calern Observatory and hands-on sessions on spectroscopic and photometric data processing according to the programme. Edition1 students will give short presentations of their ongoing Master thesis work. The recently nominated External Advisory Panel has been invited to the school and is attending in hybrid mode.
June 30th, 2024 – The third issue of the MASS E-Newsletter is available here.
June 18th, 2024 – The student selection for MASS Edition 3 has been finalized with the two meetings of the Selection Committee of 22-23/04/2024 and 17/05/2024. Out of a total of 436 applications, 283 fulfilled the general eligibility criteria and were evaluated by the MASS Selection Committee. As a result, 73 applicants were selected for admission. A total of 25 full scholarships and 6 fee waivers were offered to the highest ranked applicants. The remaining selected candidates were placed in a reserve list and were given the possibility to participate as self-funded students, although within the limits of the maximum capacity of the course. All applicants have been notified via email about the outcome of their applications.
January 17th, 2024 – The second MASS Winter School “From Stars to Cosmic Explosions: Bridging Scales in Astrophysical Data Analysys” is hosted this week, 15th to 19th January, 2024 by the Physics Department of the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”. The school features several hands-on sessions on the application of differing techniques for the analysis of a variety of astrophysical data. MASS students from both ongoing editions are present and special sessions are dedicated to Edition-1-student presentations of their ongoing projects. Two alumnae of the EMJMD AstroMundus are participating as invited speakers. MASS 2nd Winter School program.
October 17th, 2023 – The Call for Applications for admission to the third edition of the MASS master course (starting in September 2024) opens on October 17th, 2023. Applications must be submitted through this website (see the Application menu). The application deadline is February 15th, 2024 at 23:59 CET (UTC+1). Reference letters must be uploaded directly by recommenders upon receipt of the email invitation during the period November 20th, 2023 – February 22nd, 2024.
September 22nd, 2023 – The official Welcome Days of the second MASS course edition will be hosted by the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” at Villa Mondragone on September 25th and 26th, 2023 and at the Physics Department on September 27th, 2023. Representatives of all MASS Consortium Universities will welcome the new batch of students, will introduce the main research fields of the Consortium in connection with the MASS course offer and are looking forward to the short presentations with which the incoming MASS students will introduce themselves. MASS Edition-2 Welcome Days program.
July 16th, 2023 – The first MASS Summer School will be hosted by the University of Bremen from 17th to 21st July, 2023. It will focus on the “Foundations and Applications of General Relativity” and will include visits to the space and technology company OHB, the German Aerospace Center DLR and the Center for Applied Space Technology and Microgravity ZARM. The preliminary program is available here.
June 30th, 2023 – The second issue of the MASS E-Newsletter is available here.
May 22nd, 2023 – An Agreement between the Physics Department of the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) has been closed. In the framework of this agreement, ASI will finance a full scholarship, equivalent to an EMJM scholarship, for each of the forthcoming MASS editions, Editions 2, 3 and 4. The ASI scholarship for Edition 2 has been awarded to the highest ranked reserve-list candidate. In addition, ASI will make available each year a few internship / summer project positions for MASS students.
April 24th, 2023 – The student selection for MASS 2nd Edition has been finalized. Out of a total of 289 applications, 173 fulfilled the general eligibility criteria and were evaluated by the MASS Selection Committee. As a result, 58 applicants were selected for admission. Scholarships were offered to the 23 highest ranked applicants (main list). The remaining candidates were placed in a reserve list, the top 5 of which were offered a Fee Waiver. Main list, reserve list and non-selected applicants were notified via email. Applicants whose applications did not fulfill the general eligibility criteria will be informed via email, too.
April 3rd, 2023 – The student selection process is currently ongoing for the 2023 course edition of MASS. In total, 289 applications have been received. Because of the large number of applications, the outcome of the selection will become available in the second half of April 2023, about two weeks later than originally expected.
March 5th, 2023 – The 2023 application period is now closed. Applications for admission to the second edition of the MASS master course (starting in September 2023) were accepted until March 3rd , 2023. The outcome of the student selection is expected to be known in the first week of April, 2023. A new call for applications will be issued in autumn 2023 for the course starting in September 2024.
January 19th, 2023 – The first MASS Winter School took place in Rome with a focus on Astrostatistics and Big Data Approaches from 16th to 18th January, 2023. The first two days of the school were hosted by the Italian Space Agency and featured lectures on the use of data from state-of-the-art and upcoming facilities across various Astrophysics and Space Science research areas. The final day was hosted by the Physics Department of the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” and was dedicated to hands-on sessions on the application of data analysis techniques. MASS 1st Winter School program.
December 22nd, 2022 – The Call for Applications for admission to the second edition of the MASS master course (starting in September 2023) opens on December 22nd, 2022. Applications must be submitted through this website (see the Application menu). The application deadline is March 3rd, 2023 at 23:59 CET (UTC+1).
October 29th, 2022 – The first issue of the MASS E-Newsletter is available here.
October 1st, 2022 – Edition-1 Welcome Days took place on September 28th – 30th at Villa Mondragone in Frascati with the participation of representatives of all MASS Consortium Universities. Students were welcomed by the Rectors/Presidents of the four Universities, the Director of the Physics Department of the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, the Project Officer at EACEA and the Program Coordinator. Two alumni from the AstroMundus program were invited to talk about their experience as former Erasmus Mundus students. Edition-1 students gave short presentations to introduce themselves. Presentations were given by all Partners and there was ample time for questions and informal discussions. MASS Edition-1 Welcome Days program.
May 17th, 2022 – Extension of limiting date for eligible applicants to obtain their Bachelor’s degree: applications for admission to the first edition of the MASS master course can be accepted from applicants who obtain a Bachelor’s (or equivalent) degree at latest by June 6th, 2022, i.e. before the application deadline.
April 4th, 2022 – The Call for Applications for admission to the first edition of the MASS master course (starting in September 2022) opens on April 4th, 2022. Applications must be submitted through this website. The application deadline is June 6th, 2022 at 23:59 CEST (UTC+2).
January 24th, 2022 – The kick-off meeting between the Consortium Partners marked the official start of the MASS program.
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