Awareness Conference "Hot topics in Astrophysics"
Bucharest, September 24-28, 2013

This conference brought together students from all over Eastern Europe,
and senior scientists, to discuss the recent progress,
and major open questions in Astrophysics.

About 50 participants gathered at the Astronomical Observatory of the Romanian Academy, who kindly hosted the meeting.
Student participants came from Albania, Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia, and of course, Romania.
The lecturers were from France, Italy and the United Kingdom.

The participants were very active, and the interactions fruitfull, thanks to a very nice ambiance,
also favoured by the lunches taken all together in a small restaurant in the closeby Parku Carol
The final discussions turned around the main questions every student has, before or during the PhD,
namely how to find a job and how best to proceed to have a successfull, EU wide, career.
This meeting showed once again, how important it is for young people in the eastern countries
to have the possibility to interact with experienced senior scientists in the field.

The lecture room at the Bucharest Observatory

Program

( Late afternoons were reserved for discussions)

Tuesday, September 24th
Morning: New questions in Stellar Astrophysics I , by Ana Palacios, University of Montpellier
Intergalactic Medium, by Patrick Petitjean, IAP, and University of Paris 6
Afternoon: Virtual Observatory, with practical work, by Giulia Iafrate, Trieste

Wednesday, September 25th
Morning:  Stellar Astrophysics II, by Ana Palacios
Instrumentation , by Michel Dennefeld, IAP and University of Paris 6
Afternoon: Astronomy in Romania (Magda Stavinschi, Bucharest, and Christina Blaga, Cluj)
Visit of the Observatory

A public conference was also delivered that evening, by M. Dennefeld,
at the French Institute in Bucharest, on the Evolution of telescopes, from Galileo to the E-ELT

Thursday, September 26th
Morning: Galaxies I, by Francois Hammer, Paris Observatory
Exoplanets I, by Alain LeCavelier, IAP and University of Paris 6
Afternoon: Proposal writing, with practical work, by Pierre Kervella, Paris Observatory

Friday, September 27th
Morning: Exoplanets II, Alain LeCavelier
Galaxies II, Fr. Hammer
Afternoon: Activity in Galaxies, by Martin Ward, University of Durham
Large scale surveys, by Andrew Lawrence, University of Edimborough
General Discussion

Saturday, September 28th (for school teachers)

Exoplanets (Alain LeCavelier, Paris)
ISM (Mircea Rusu, Bucharest)
The Milky Way (Radu Constantinescu, Craiova)