The Co-director of the ERIS Millennium Nucleus and astrophysicist, Patricia Tissera, was announced during the month of August with the award of the Charreau Prize. This award was created in 2020, with the dual purpose of paying tribute to a notable figure in Ibero-American science and rewarding the scientific production and cooperation of researchers in the region.
The Charreau Award is a publicly convened award, for which Patricia was nominated by the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (PUC) based on her career. Astrophysics has formed its experience in countries such as Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Chile. In addition, it has participated and encouraged collaborations between groups in our geographical region, being something essential and important in the field of scientific research. Although sometimes the situation is complicated, it is necessary to make this effort as a region, since we need too support those who want to do science and contribute to maketheir achievements and efforts visible. “This is a way to achieve visibility .” Patricia affirms.
The nomination for the Charreau award was institutional, so it was the Institute of Astrophysics, the Faculty of Physics and the University, who, through the Vice-Rector for Research, first assessed the nomination and decided to support the proposal. “It is to them that I am grateful for having trusted me. The environment created by the institutions and their support are essential to achieve an ecosystem that allows us to focus on science, technology and the training of excellent students who are eager to share new challenges.”
Throughout her career, Patricia has consolidated leadership in the areas of Galaxy Formation, Chemical Evolution, Cosmology and Numerical Simulations. Topics with which she has already received various awards, recognizing her work, having a solid experience in supervising young researchers. This is why she was recently awarded the Charreau Award, a recognition that highlights and makes visible the work she does, the young people we train, and their own achievements. The impact, the visibility that is gained, contributes positively to enhance our work and the institutions that host and support this work.
A review of his career
Patricia arrived in Chile in 2014, where she became part of the astronomical community.. The astronomer comments that in these years she has been able to participate in challenging projects, which have allowed her to continue increasing her experience as a researcher and academic.
Currently, Patricia works as co-director of ERIS, as well as dedicating to work at the Center for Astrophysics and Related Technologies (CATA), where she is the main researcher in the area of cosmology, and at the PUC Institute of Astrophysics, studying different aspects of galaxy formation using numerical simulations. He started working on this topic in the 1990s, developing one of the first codes to study how galaxies were formed and evolved and their interaction with the environment.
“The history of galaxy formation with different morphologies is analyzed in detail in relation to their merger histories, environment, angular momentum context, and fundamental relationships between their properties at different stages of evolution of the universe. We study the properties of galaxies dominated by disk- and spheroids, focusing on their fundamental relationships over time, as well as their interaction with the environment where they are located.”
Besides conducting research, she is also a professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and leads the Formation and Computational Evolution of Galaxies group. She was principal investigator at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (Argentina, 1998-2017) and full professor at Universidad Andrés Bello (2017-2020). She completed her undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Astronomy at the National University of Córdoba, a postdoctoral degree at the University of Oxford (1995) and jointly at the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine and the Autonomous University of Madrid (1996-1997).
Patricia has directed and participated in various national and international projects, including groups from different countries such as Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Mexico. She has collaborated in scientific committees both in Latin-American and in the European Community, Netherlands and other countries in the world. She contributed to the formation of the National High Performance Computing System and led the formation of the New Argentine Virtual Observatory, in Argentina. Since 2019, she has fulfilled her role as scientific coordinator of the network of Argentine scientists in Chile of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MINCYT) (Argentina).
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