Tarek Hassan
Born
Tarek Hassan Collado

1985
NationalitySpanish / Lebanese
Alma materComplutense University of Madrid, Chalmers University of Technology
Known forNovel uses of Cherenkov Telescope Array
AwardsERC Grant
Scientific career
FieldsStellar Intensity Interferometry, Fast Optical Astronomy, Cherenkov Telescope Array
InstitutionsCIEMAT, DESY, IFAE, ESAC
Thesis Sensivity studies for the Cherenkov Telescope Array  (2016)

Tarek Hassan is a Spanish/Lebanese astrophysicist whose work focuses on high energy telescopes which rely on Cherenkov radiation. He has participated in the largest international telescope consortiums of this kind, including CTA, MAGIC and VERITAS. He is the recipient of a ERC Grant of 2.5M€ with the MicroStars project,[1] to design and implement novel uses of Cherenkov telescopes.

Education & career

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He studied Physics in the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), later specializing in astrophysics through a joint masters between UCM and the Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden).[2][3] In 2010, he was selected as trainee in the European Space Astronomy Centre, ESA's centre for space science.[4] Later, the Spanish Ministry of Science awarded him a PhD scholarship,[5] with which he started his research on the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), joining its international consortium.[6]

In 2015, after his PhD, he was awarded a Juan de la Cierva scholarship[7] to research at IFAE (Barcelona), where he joined the MAGIC telescope consortium.[8] In 2017, he obtained a position at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (Germany),[9] joining the Arizona-based VERITAS telescope consortium.[10] In 2020, he was awarded a Madrid Region talent contract to research at the CIEMAT centre,[3] which had a central role in the design and construction of CTA components.[11]

He belongs to the PhD supervision program at UCM,[12] and as a software developer he has contributed to several CTA-related projects.[13]

Work

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Hassan has published high impact research in Nature and Science journals, concerning VERITAS[14][15] and MAGIC[16][17] telescopes. He has an H-index of 32 according to Google Scholar.[18] His research has been featured multiple times in scientific[19][20][21][22] and mainstream media,[23][24][25][26] which has featured his work as "clever", [24] "excellent",[27] or "great achievement".[23]

In 2022, he obtained a European Research Council Starting Grant[1] of 2.5 million euro to design and implement novel modifications on CTA.[28] The project is expected to enable "the first telescope with an equivalent size of several kilometers of diameter".[2] This project was highlighted in the media as "difficult to ask more from an astronomy project",[28] "virtual supertelescope",[29] "helpful to understand the morphology of stars",[30] and "a project to revolutionize how we understand the solar system".[31]

Selected works

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  • Acciari, V. A., Ansoldi, S., Antonelli, L. A., Arbet Engels, A., Artero, M., Asano, K., ... & Pihet, M. (2022). Proton acceleration in thermonuclear nova explosions revealed by gamma rays. Nature Astronomy, 6(6), 689-697.
  • Abeysekara, A. U., Benbow, W., Brill, A., Buckley, J. H., Christiansen, J. L., Chromey, A. J., ... & Williamson, T. J. (2020). Demonstration of stellar intensity interferometry with the four VERITAS telescopes. Nature Astronomy, 4(12), 1164-1169.
  • Benbow, W., Bird, R., Brill, A., Brose, R., Chromey, A. J., Daniel, M. K., ... & Williamson, T. J. (2019). Direct measurement of stellar angular diameters by the VERITAS Cherenkov telescopes. Nature Astronomy, 3(6), 511-516.
  • Nigro, C., Deil, C., Zanin, R., Hassan, T., King, J., Ruiz, J. E., ... & Sinha, A. (2019). Towards open and reproducible multi-instrument analysis in gamma-ray astronomy. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 625, A10.
  • IceCube Collaboration, MAGIC, AGILE, ASAS-SN, HAWC, HESS, ... & Kappesser, D. (2018). Multimessenger observations of a flaring blazar coincident with high-energy neutrino IceCube-170922A. Science, 361(6398), eaat1378.
  • Hassan, T., Arrabito, L., Bernlöhr, K., Bregeon, J., Cortina, J., Cumani, P., ... & Wood, M. (2017). Monte Carlo performance studies for the site selection of the Cherenkov Telescope Array. Astroparticle Physics, 93, 76-85.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b "ERC Starting Grants 2022: List of Principal Investigators selected for funding. Physical Sciences and Engineering domain" (PDF). European Research Council. 22 Nov 2022. Retrieved 28 Jan 2023.
  2. ^ a b "The CIEMAT researcher Tarek Hassan, awarded with the highest prestige grant of the European Union". CIEMAT News. 22 Nov 2022. Retrieved 28 Jan 2023.
  3. ^ a b Christian (2022-11-26). "El investigador del CIEMAT, Tarek Hassan, ha obtenido la beca de mayor prestigio científico de la Unión Europea". Tercera Información (in Spanish). Retrieved 2023-01-28.
  4. ^ "Alumni Meeting 2012 - ESAC Trainees - Cosmos". www.cosmos.esa.int. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
  5. ^ "PhD Theses | Instituto de Física de Partículas y del Cosmos". www.ucm.es. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
  6. ^ "INSPIRE". inspirehep.net. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
  7. ^ "Annex to the awarded scholarships Juan de la Cierva" (PDF). Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness. 26 Jun 2017. Retrieved 28 Jan 2023.
  8. ^ "Maintenance | MAGIC". magic.mpp.mpg.de. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
  9. ^ Jump, Tyler; Astrophysics, Harvard-Smithsonian Center For (2019-04-21). "VERITAS Collaboration Measures Smallest Star Size to Date". SciTechDaily. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
  10. ^ "Tarek Hassan". veritas.sao.arizona.edu. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
  11. ^ Array, Cherenkov Telescope. "First telescope on a Cherenkov Telescope Array site makes its debut". phys.org. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
  12. ^ "Recursos humanos | Doctorado en Astrofísica". www.ucm.es. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
  13. ^ "TarekHC - Overview". GitHub. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
  14. ^ Benbow, W.; Bird, R.; Brill, A.; Brose, R.; Chromey, A. J.; Daniel, M. K.; Feng, Q.; Finley, J. P.; Fortson, L.; Furniss, A.; Gillanders, G. H.; Giuri, C.; Gueta, O.; Hanna, D.; Halpern, J. P. (15 April 2019). "Direct measurement of stellar angular diameters by the VERITAS Cherenkov telescopes". Nature Astronomy. 3 (6): 511–516. arXiv:1904.06324. Bibcode:2019NatAs...3..511B. doi:10.1038/s41550-019-0741-z. ISSN 2397-3366. S2CID 256706849.
  15. ^ Abeysekara, A. U.; Benbow, W.; Brill, A.; Buckley, J. H.; Christiansen, J. L.; Chromey, A. J.; Daniel, M. K.; Davis, J.; Falcone, A.; Feng, Q.; Finley, J. P.; Fortson, L.; Furniss, A.; Gent, A.; Giuri, C. (20 July 2020). "Demonstration of stellar intensity interferometry with the four VERITAS telescopes". Nature Astronomy. 4 (12): 1164–1169. arXiv:2007.10295. Bibcode:2020NatAs...4.1164A. doi:10.1038/s41550-020-1143-y. ISSN 2397-3366. S2CID 256726791.
  16. ^ Acciari, V. A.; Ansoldi, S.; Antonelli, L. A.; Arbet Engels, A.; Artero, M.; Asano, K.; Baack, D.; Babić, A.; Baquero, A.; Barres de Almeida, U.; Barrio, J. A.; Batković, I.; Becerra González, J.; Bednarek, W.; Bellizzi, L. (14 April 2022). "Proton acceleration in thermonuclear nova explosions revealed by gamma rays". Nature Astronomy. 6 (6): 689–697. arXiv:2202.07681. Bibcode:2022NatAs...6..689A. doi:10.1038/s41550-022-01640-z. hdl:10261/280084. ISSN 2397-3366. S2CID 256705656.
  17. ^ The IceCube Collaboration; Fermi-LAT; MAGIC; AGILE; ASAS-SN; HAWC; H.E.S.S.; INTEGRAL; Kanata; Kiso; Kapteyn; Liverpool Telescope; Subaru; Swift/NuSTAR; VERITAS (2018-07-13). "Multimessenger observations of a flaring blazar coincident with high-energy neutrino IceCube-170922A". Science. 361 (6398): eaat1378. arXiv:1807.08816. Bibcode:2018Sci...361.1378I. doi:10.1126/science.aat1378. hdl:1721.1/129380. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 30002226. S2CID 204803450.
  18. ^ "Tarek Hassan". scholar.google.de. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
  19. ^ Jump, Tyler; Astrophysics, Harvard-Smithsonian Center For (2019-04-21). "VERITAS Collaboration Measures Smallest Star Size to Date". SciTechDaily. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
  20. ^ "VERITAS: Der Durchmesser ferner Sterne". www.astronews.com. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
  21. ^ "Asteroids help scientists to measure the diameters of faraway stars". EurekAlert!. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
  22. ^ "How Astronomers Used Asteroids to Measure Stars". Sky & Telescope. 2019-04-24. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
  23. ^ a b Press, Europa (2019-04-16). "Recurren a asteroides para medir los diámetros de estrellas lejanas". www.europapress.es. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
  24. ^ a b Gorey, Colm (2019-04-15). "Astronomers measure smallest star size to date using clever asteroid trick". Silicon Republic. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
  25. ^ Malewar, Amit (2020-07-21). "Measuring diameters of distant stars". Tech Explorist. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
  26. ^ Press, Europa (2020-07-21). "Telescopios de rayos gamma miden diámetros de estrellas distantes". www.europapress.es. Retrieved 2023-03-14.
  27. ^ "Asteroids help scientists to measure the diameters of faraway stars: New technique doubles resolution of angular size measurements". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
  28. ^ a b Pichel, José (2023-01-21). "El telescopio gigante español que va a obtener imágenes nunca vistas del universo". elconfidencial.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 2023-01-28.
  29. ^ Sombrero, Ángel (5 Mar 2023). "El proyecto MicroStars pretende ver las estrellas como nunca antes lo hemos hecho y descubrir pequeños objetos en el Cinturón de Kuiper". Telemadrid. Retrieved 19 Mar 2023.
  30. ^ "Los telescopios Magic situados en las cumbres de La Palma han servido para probar una técnica de observación que ayudará a conocer la morfología de las estrellas". Radio Televisión Canaria. 29 Jan 2023. Retrieved 19 Mar 2023.
  31. ^ "Tarek Hassan, el astrofísico español que estudiará las estrellas con la beca de mayor prestigio de la Unión Europea | HAZTE ECO". compromiso.atresmedia.com (in Spanish). 2023-01-09. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
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