Curriculum Vitae

Pdf Version

ALEXANDRA ECUVILLON

DATE OF BIRTH: February 9th, 1979

NATIONALITY: Italian, Swiss, French

EDUCATION:
. Oct 2002 - Oct 2004 - Equivalent to Master's Degree ('Diploma de Estudios Avanzados') in Astrophysics, at the Department of Astrophysics, University of La Laguna - Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, with top marks, for the thesis "Abundancias químicas en estrellas con sistemas planetarios extrasolares", supervised by Dr. Garik Israelian.
. Oct 1997 - July 2002 - Degree in Physics (Equivalent to a BSc, specialization Astrophysics) at the University of La Laguna, Spain.

RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS:
. Oct 2002 - Present - Resident Astronomer Fellowship at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Spain. Ph.D. in Astrophysics, under the supervision of Dr. Garik Israelian, with the Thesis entitled "Chemical abundances in stars with and without extrasolar planets".
. June 2005 -Sept 2005 - EARA Marie Curie Visiting Fellowship for postgraduate students at the IoA in Cambridge (UK), under the supervision of Prof. Gilmore.

OBSERVING EXPERIENCE:
Observing experience in optical and near-UV spectroscopy using the following facilities: SARG echelle spectrograph at the 3.5m TNG, IACUB spectrograph at the 2.2m NOT (Roque de Los Muchachos, La Palma), UVES spectrograph at the 8.2m VLT (Cerro Paranal, Chile).

VISITING RESEARCHER:
. March 2006 - Geneva Observatory (Switzerland), working with Prof. Michel Mayor and Dr. Frédéric Pont.
. June-Sept 2005 - IoA, University of Cambridge (UK), working with Prof. Gerry Gilmore.
. Sept 2004 - Trieste Observatory (Italy), working with Dr. Piercarlo Bonifacio.
. April 2004 - Geneva Observatory (Switzerland), working with Prof. Michel Mayor and Dr. Nuno C. Santos.

LANGUAGE KNOWLEDGE:
· Italian (native)
· French (native)
· Spanish (fluent)
· English (proficient)
· German (basic)

COMPUTING SKILLS:
· Operating Systems: UNIX, LINUX, Windows
· Numerical Computing: IDL, MATLAB, C++, FORTRAN
· Graphics/visualization: IDL, Xfig, XV, GIMP
· Astronomical software: IRAF, ESO-MIDAS, MOOG, DIPSO (Starlink)
· Others: MSOffice, LaTex, CorelDraw, HTML

RESEARCH INTERESTS:
· Chemical abundances in stars with planets
· Formation and evolution of planetary systems
· Galactic stellar abundances and Galaxy chemical evolution
· Stellar kinematics
· High-resolution spectroscopy

INVITED SEMINARS:
. Jan 2006 - "Abundancias químicas en estrellas con planetas: autoenriquecimiento u origen primordial?", at the IAC, Tenerife, Spain
. Sept 2005 - "Chemical abundances in stars with exoplanets ", at the IoA, University of Cambridge, UK.
. Jun 2005 - "Chemical abundances in stars with and without extrasolar planets ", at the 1st Campus de Excelencia (Tenerife, Spain, Jun 10-16)
. Feb 2005 - "Abundancias químicas en estrellas con sistemas planetarios", at the 3rd meeting of Red Española de Planetas (IAC, Tenerife, Spain, Feb 3-4)
. April 2004 - "Abondances de C, N, S, Zn et Cu dans les étoiles qui hébergent planètes", at the Geneva Observatory, Switzerland.

SUPERVISING EXPERIENCE:
. Sept 2004 - March 2005 - Co-supervisor of the BSc thesis "Abbondanze chimiche in stelle con sistemi planetari" of Gabriella Gilli, at the Department of Astronomy at the University of Padova (Italy)

EVENTS ORGANIZATION:
. June 2006 - LOC member of the conference "The metal-rich universe", to be held in La Palma, Canary Island, Spain, June 12-16

WORKSHOPS, CONFERENCES AND MEETING ATTENDED:
. June 2006 - "The metal-rich universe" (La Palma, Canary Island, Spain, June 12-16), with the oral contribution "Kinematics of metal rich stars".
. Aug 2005 - OHP Colloquium "Tenth Anniversary of 51 Peg-b: status of and prospects for hot Jupiter studies" (OHP, France, Aug 22-26), with the poster contribution "Abundance ratios of volatile vs. refractory elements in planet-harbouring stars: hints of pollution?".
. May 2005 - IAU Symposium 228 on "From Lithium to Uranium: elemental tracers of early cosmic evolution" (Paris, France, May 23-27), with the poster contribution "Metal- rich end of Galactic chemical evolution".
. Nov 2004 - XVI Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysics on "Extrasolar planets" (Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife, Spain, Nov 22-Dec 3), with the poster contribution "CNO, S, Zn and Cu abundances in stars with exoplanets".
. Sept 2004 - ESO-Arcetri Workshop on "Chemical Abundances and Mixing in Stars in the Milky Way and its Satellites" (Castiglione della Pescaia, Tuscany, Italy, Sept 13-17), with the poster contribution "Oxygen in metal-rich stars: abundances from [O I] 6300, O I 7771-5 and near-UV OH"

PUBLICATIONS:
· 9 refereed papers in primary journals: 8 published, 1 in preparation, 5 as first author.
Total citations: 91
· 6 contributions to symposia and compiled volumes, all as first author
· 2 Press releases:
5 Jan 2006: Nature's Research Highlights "Planetary Ingredients", concerning Ecuvillon et al. 2006, A&A, 445, 633
12 Jan 2006: IAC Press Release "Nuevas pruebas de que los sistemas planetarios y sus estrellas se forman en nubes con mayor abundancia de metales pesados", concerning Ecuvillon et al. 2006, A&A, 445, 633