Star formation

Star formation: a multi-wavelength observational approach

The group studies star formation with a multi-wavelength approach, including proto-planetary disks and episodic accretion. The group has expertise in X-ray, millimeter, and infrared observations of star forming regions.

The group is funded by the H2020 SPACE2020 project NEMESIS (grant agreement No. 101004141) which started in March 2021, in collaboration with Dr Odysseas Dionatos at the University of Vienna and Dr Gabor Marton at Konkoly Observatory. NEMESIS has the ambition to reshape our understanding on the formation of stars by employing artificial intelligence methods to interpret the largest, panchromatic data collection of young stellar objects. Dr Julia Roquette is a senior postdoc in the group since December 2021. Ms Chloé Mas is hired as Assistant in the project since September 2024. As spin-off of this project, the ISSI team "Revisiting Star Formation in the Era of Big Data" gathered additional experts in star formation, machine learning, statistics, and astro-informatics. Collaboration with ISSI members is ongoing, in particular with Dr. Kai Polsterer (HITS; AI application to star formation), Dr Christian Schneider (Hamburg; eROSITA X-ray catalogue) and Dr Sotiria Fotopoulou (Bristol; Classification of YSO).

Dr Kim Pouilly joined the group since November 2023 after being awarded a 2-year Swiss National Science Foundation Postdoctoral fellowship for his project SIMBA: Stellar accretIon and Magnetism in young BinAries.


The group was initially funded funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grants No. PP002-110504) from 2006 to 2011. Dr. Marc Audard was recipient of a Swiss NSF Professorship at the University of Geneva, in the Department of Astronomy

Carla Baldovin Saavedra did her PhD (High energy processes in young stars and the effect of EUV/X-ray irradiation in proto-planetary disks) under the supervision of Dr. Marc Audard from March 2007 to July 2011 (with a short postdoc stay until June 2012). She had a postdoc position in Vienna, Austria then moved to the Netherlands as Policy Officer and Project Manager for LOFAR. More details on Linkedin.

Dr Andrés Carmona stayed as postdoc from October 2007 to November 2011. His research focussed on gas emission in protoplanetary disks, mainly using ground-based facilities in the infrared. He moved to several postdoc positions. More details on Linkedin.

Dr Francesco Fontani also joined the group in July 2008 from the INAF Radioastronomy group in Bologna but moved a year later for an ALMA fellowship at IRAM, France. His expertise in millimeter astronomy and massive star formation allowed the group to gain further experience in these fields. He is now staff astronomer in Arcetri, Italy, see his page.

From 2013 to 2019, the group participated in the the STARFORM project to study star formation from the near to far Universe. The STARFORM project gathered several galactic and extragalactic star formation groups in Switzerland to study star formation from the Milky Way to the distant Universe, both observationally and computationally.

Dr Yuan Wang joined STARFORM from 2013 to 2015 to study massive star forming regions using millimeter single-dish and interferometric telescopes. After another postdoc in Germany, Yuan moved to industry.

Gözde Saral then was hired as PhD student on the project, she graduated in 2017 (From infrared dark clouds to massive young stars: Spitzer and MALT90 studies of massive star forming regions) and is now data scientist in sustainability.

The group obtained a SNF-FWF Lead Agency together with Dr Eduard Vorobyov at the University of Vienna on the topic of episodic accretion, linking observations, numerical simulations, and thermochemical modeling.

Andreas Postel was hired as PhD student and obtained his PhD thesis in 2020 (Episodic accretion: a study of gas emission lines in eruptive young stars).