THE TEAM

During my PhD within the IceCube Collaboration I worked on probing the connection of jets, Supernovae and Gamma-Ray Bursts using TeV neutrinos. As a postdoc at the SLAC National Linear Accelerator Laboratory I studied the morphology and the spectrum of the Fermi bubbles and searched for gamma-ray emission from Type IIn supernovae using Fermi-LAT data as a member of the Fermi-LAT Collaboration.

From 2017-2022 I led a Helmholtz Young Investigator Group at DESY Zeuthen and since October 2020 I'm a full professor for multi-wavelength astronomy at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB). I served as the IceCube analysis coordinator (2019-2021) and the multi-messenger co-coordinator of the Zwicky Transient Facility (2019-2022). I coordinated the Fermi-LAT diffuse working group in 2015-2016.

I'm a member of the of the IceCube, Fermi-LAT, CTA, ASAS-SN, ZTF and Large Array Survey Telescope (LAST) collaborations.

Vera is the most important member of the group. She helps us to survive the bureaucracy djungle.

My research focuses on very-high-energy gamma-ray astronomy, particularly gamma-ray cosmology, blazar science, and the search for astrophysical dark matter. On the technical side, I am interested in developing analysis methods for gamma ray astronomy. I come from a particle physics background: my PhD was on the CDF experiment at the Tevatron, and my first postdoc on the ATLAS experiment at CERN. In 2013, I moved to gamma-ray astronomy via an Irish Research Council Fellowship and then a Marie Curie Fellowship at University Dublin. From 2017-2022 I led a Helmholtz Young Investigator group at DESY Zeuthen, and stayed on as a staff scientist. Since August 2023 I am a staff scientist in the Multimessenger Group at RUB.

I am a member of the VERITAS collaboration and the CTA consortium. Currently I am the co-chair of the VERITAS Time Allocation Committee, and deputy chair of the CTA Extragalactic Science working group.

I am an astroparticle physicist with a strong background in theoretical computer science. My research focuses on very-high-energy gamma-ray astronomy, with particular emphasis on gamma-ray cosmology, which uses distant gamma-ray sources as probes to study the electromagnetic content and structure of the Universe.

During my PhD at IJCLab, near Paris, I led the development of STeVECat, the most comprehensive catalog to date of very-high-energy gamma-ray spectra from extragalactic sources (publicly available here.). This catalog, combined with a new Bayesian analysis framework, allowed me to obtain the first model-independent measurement of the extragalactic background light (EBL) from gamma-ray cosmology. From this measurement, I derived constraints on the amount of diffuse sources in the Universe as well as a measurement of the local Hubble constant independent of CMB and cosmic distance ladder measurements.

As a member of the Multimessenger group at RUB, I am involved in the preparation of the gamma-ray cosmology measurements from the next generation of VHE observatories, the CTAO. I am a member of the CTAO Consortium and the LST Collaboration.

I began my physics education at The Open University in Milton Keynes, UK, earning a BSc (Honours) in Physics with a concentration in theoretical physics and astrophysics, focusing my thesis on quantum entanglement in diamonds. Afterward, I pursued a year of postgraduate studies in medical physics and medical chemistry, investigating brain imaging techniques and Alzheimer's treatment.

I received my MSc in Physics from Linnaeus University in Växjö, Sweden, where I concentrated on astroparticle physics. My thesis focused on the connection between neutrinos from the blazar TXS 0506+056 and gamma-ray spectra observed by Fermi-LAT. Following this, I completed my Ph.D. in Physics at Uppsala University, Sweden, where I worked with the IceCube Neutrino Telescope. My Ph.D. research focused on multi-messenger astronomy, studying neutrinos across a wide energy range (MeV to PeV) from extreme transient systems like supernovae, neutron star mergers, and GRBs. I developed novel analysis streams for both online and offline MeV neutrino detection, improving IceCube’s ability to respond to supernovae and other astrophysical transient events.

I joined the RUB MM group as a postdoc in October 2024, where my research focuses on exploring supranuclear density systems, such as neutron stars and supernovae, where the nature of matter remains elusive. I am also continuing to work on improving IceCube’s MeV neutrino response to astrophysical events such as supernovae, which could occur galactically at any time. Such an event would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to probe deep into these extreme systems, allowing us to expand our understanding of matter and the nature of the universe.

I have received my bachelor's and master's in Physics from the University of São Paulo (USP). In my master's thesis, I have investigated the sensitivity of the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) to gamma rays originating from dark matter annihilation in Milky Way substructures, which has led to a publication. In 2020, I moved to Germany to start my PhD at the Humboldt University and DESY Zeuthen as a member of the Helmholtz-Weizmann Research School on Multimessenger Astronomy. During my PhD, I have played a key role in the implementation of a new image cleaning technique for the VERITAS telescopes. Additionally, I led the search for very high-energy emission from tidal disruption events (TDEs) and fast blue optical transients (FBOTs) with VERITAS.

Since joining the Multimessenger group at RUB in June 2024, I have focused on very high-energy transient science with the CTAO and on optimising simulations for the observatory. In addition, I will continue leading follow-up observations of TDEs and FBOTs with VERITAS.

I completed my bachelor's in Physics Engineering at the University of São Carlos (UFSCar) in Brazil and then earned my master’s in Astrophysics at the University of São Paulo (USP) in 2018. That same year, I moved to Germany to start my PhD at Humboldt University (HU) and DESY. My thesis focused on investigating the very-high-energy gamma-ray emission from M87 using H.E.S.S. data and its potential connection to the Virgo Cluster. During this time, I also developed a pipeline to monitor the structure of the medium-sized telescope at the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) based on vibration measurements.

For my first postdoc at the same institute, I continued working with H.E.S.S. data on extragalactic sources. I was the lead author of two H.E.S.S. publications, led the H.E.S.S. contribution to the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) multi-wavelength working group, and heavily contributed to developing the simulation pipeline for CTAO.

In July 2024, I joined the Multimessenger Group at RUB and began expanding into optical astronomy. Here, I will be developing the experimental setup, analysis pipeline, and science case for polarization measurements with the Large Array Survey Telescope (LAST), focusing on AGN science. As a member of the CTAO Consortium, I am particularly interested in understanding the gamma-ray emission of extragalactic sources in a multi-wavelength context.

Nuria did her PhD research on real-time multiwavelength studies of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) during 2017-2021 at the University of Bath (UK). Using the largest fully-robotic telescope (the Liverpool Telescope) and early-time optical polarimetry, she focused on determining the powering mechanisms of these powerful explosions. Under the postdoctoral Hiroko Sherwin grant, she pursued 1.5 years more of research at the same institution. With the EPSRC IAA grant, she did a research stay of 5 months at the Royal Society on the topic of space policies.

She started a Humboldt Fellowship in February 2024 at the RUB. With Anna, she now focuses on deep-field optical polarimetry of tidal disruption events (TDEs) and link with neutrinos. She continues her research on GRBs and optical polarimetry (including the LAST)

I entered the Multi-Messenger (MM) group at the Bochum University in February 2024, as part of the IceCube Collaboration, after a long scientific training in Rome at Sapienza University. There I got bachelor and master degrees as well as my PhD, and I also spent a year as a Postdoctoral researcher.

My history with the neutrino telescopes' world has started from the beginning of my scientific career. I spent my PhD and postdoc in Rome working for both the ANTARES and KM3NeT Collaborations. Throughout this time, I contributed to the software development of the KM3NeT-ARCA online system and to follow-up analyses of multi-messenger alerts. Moreover, I also extensively investigated phenomenological models of neutrino emissions from Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) in both low- and high-energy domains, and performed high-level statistical data analyses to search for temporal and spatial correlations between GRBs and ANTARES neutrino events.

I am enthusiastic now to have joined the MM group here in Bochum; I feel well-motivated to expand my knowledge and to continue exploiting the potential of multi-messenger observations.

Emma completed her PhD in 2017 at the University of Szeged, Hungary, on the topic of revealing supermassive black hole binaries via the signatures in the jets of radio-loud active galactic nuclei. She analyzed decade-long very long baseline interferometric data of AGN jets and modeled the evolution of the jet structure by hypothesizing an orbiting supermassive black hole at the base of the jet. After finishing a three years grant hosted by the Konkoly Observatory (Budapest, Hungary) and remotely already collaborating with Julia Becker Tjus and Anna Franckowiak, she joined RUB in October 2022 to work on the multimessenger astronomy of blazars, mainly from the angle of neutrino (IceCube Neutrino Observatory), gamma-ray (Fermi-LAT) and radio astronomy (various interferometric and single dish measurements).

Emma started her Humboldt Fellowship with Anna on 1 April, 2023. They carry out s tacking analysis of IceCube neutrino data to probe a sample of roughly 300 gamma-ray blazars. Emma is a member of the IceCube Collaboration.

I am a visiting PhD student in the MM group at RUB, supported by a CSC scholarship since November 2024. My PhD, based at the Tsung-Dao Lee Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), focuses on multi-messenger and neutrino astronomy. My thesis investigates neutrino signals from the Cygnus region and the diffuse Galactic Plane. As a member of the LHAASO and TRIDENT collaborations, I have worked on performance studies and energy reconstruction optimization for LHAASO-KM2A at large zenith angles. I also contributed to the TRIDENT Pathfinder experiment in 2021, developing hardware for the light source system.

My journey in multi-messenger astronomy began with my bachelor’s thesis in 2020, where I analyzed HXMT X-ray data following the neutrino alert IC190730A. I am currently involved in follow-up campaigns with observatories including FAST (radio), Insight-HXMT (X-ray), and the Lijiang 2.4-meter telescope (optical).

Jannis did his Bachelor thesis in the cosmology group at Humboldt University. Then he spend a year studying in Madrid. He joined that group as a master student and worked on an algorithm to estimate the explosion time of core-collapse supernovae in order to define a search window for high-energy neutrinos. In addition he compares different neutrino stacking codes.

In November 2020 Jannis started his PhD in the multi-messenger group as a member of the Helmholtz-Weizmann research school. He expands his work on core-collapse supernovae light curves.

In October 2020 I started my PhD thesis in the Multi-Messenger Group at the Ruhr-University. My work is focused on developing the new LAST telescope together with other astronomers at DESY in Zeuthen and the Weizmann Institute in Israel and finding optical counterparts of the IceCube neutrino events using real-time observations of the Zwicky Transient Facility.

Before joining Anna Franckowiak's group, I worked at the Astronomical Institute of the Ruhr University on photometry of large-scale structures in galaxies, including the study of the Low Surface Brightness Universe. In my master thesis I worked on the detection of diffuse dust in the disk-halo interface of nearby edge-on galaxies.

Anastasiia got her master's degree at University of Kiev. She worked on simulations for IceCube-Gen2 and spend an extended period at DESY Zeuthen working with Markus Ackermann. In October 2021 she started her PhD at RUB where she works on multi-messenger modeling of blazars.

I did my master's degree at TU Dortmund as part of the E5b physics working group. There I worked on the automatic detection of radio astronomical sources using methods of machine learning. In March 2022, I started my PhD at Anna Franckowiak's working group in Bochum. Here I study the diffuse gamma-ray emissions in the Milky Way galaxy, by comparing state-of-the-art models to Fermi-LAT data.

Giacomo spend 8 months at RUB as an ERASMUS intern to work on his master thesis. Now he's a PhD student at RUB. He studies the angular uncertainty of IceCube alert event with a focus on the influence of systematic uncertainties introduced by a limited understanding of the ice properties.

Patrik started his PhD at RUB in October 2022. He did his master thesis in Budapest where he studied EVN radio imaging and HST optical data of a dual AGN candidate. He now works on gamma-ray and radio emission of tidal disruption events.

Frederike did her Bachelor and Master thesis in the group (graduation 2021 and 2024). For the Bachelor thesis she modeled the low-frequency emission from the blazar PKS 1502+106. In her master thesis she investigated the multi-dimensional parameter space of lepto-hadronic models for the blazar PKS 0735+178. For her PhD she will model the optical polarization signal of blazars.

In 2021, I completed my bachelor's thesis in the Galaxy Evolution Group at RUB, where I investigated the low-frequency radio emission from hyper-luminous infrared galaxies (HLIRGs). I joined the Multi-Messenger Group in June 2024, to begin writing my master's thesis. My work focuses on studying the neutrino spectrum expected from gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) within the framework of a proton-synchrotron model using numerical modeling techniques.

Simon did his Bachelor thesis in the MM group in 2023, where he investigated the excess of neutrinos from blazars in the Roma-BZCAT by matching these sources to point-like neutrino hotspots detected by IceCube in the Southern sky. After spending the summer 2023 at DESY Zeuthen as a summer student, he started his master thesis in group to work on characterizing the mDOM sensor for IceCube-Gen2. He will spend several months at DESY to perform measurements in the lab.

Yannik did his Bachelor thesis in the MM group in 2023, where he studied the connection between supernovae and magnetars, to learn about their emission processes with the goal to probe them as neutrino emitters. In his master thesis he is working on possible neutrino emission of SLSNe and FBOTs. In that context he creates a catalog of theses sources and uses different powering mechanisms to check their possibilities to be high-energy neutrino candidate sources.

Shan did his PhD at Penn State University, where he modelled GRBs under supervison of Peter Meszaros. He participated in the foundations of the Astrophysical Multi-messenger Observatory Network (AMON). In 2014 he moved to a postdoc position in the theory group at DESY, where he developed the state-of-the-art lepto-hadronic modeling code AM3. The code was successfully applied to model the spectral energy distribution of the blazar TXS 0506+056.

Shan works on the code optimization, developing interface to couple the code with other simulation software and using big simulation data and machine learning technology to search for promising neutrino source candidates.

I am a postdoc at DESY since August 2017 working on multi-messenger astronomy combining ZTF and IceCube data. During my PhD at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik in Heidelberg I was a member of the XENON collaboration which tries to directly detect dark matter with liquid xenon dual-phase time projection chambers. My work included the analysis of the combined science data of XENON100 to constrain the WIMP model as well as the construction and performance tests of the photomultiplier arrays of next generation experiment XENON1T.

At DESY I am working on a novel transient pipeline for ZTF allowing for data processing and event selection, designed to be automated and adaptive to manage the large number of expected transient detections. The pipeline will enable multiple analyses starting from target of opportunity observations for multi-messenger astronomy to a magnitude limited and complete transient catalogue.

My name is Richard, and I am a physics student at Humboldt University. I did my Bachelor's degree in Heidelberg and spent one year in Grenoble with the Erasmus program. At the LPSC in Grenoble, I got in touch with high-energy physics at the LHC and did my Bachelor's project on the prospects of searching for Dark Matter with the ATLAS detector.

Ulas works with Fermi-LAT data. Starting from photons at energies above 100 GeV he looks for not catalogued sources and studies their multi-wavelength behavior. The data is then fit with a leptonic model.