ERC Consolidator Grant for Else Starkenburg

Researcher Else Starkenburg of the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute (University of Groningen) has been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant. The European Research Council (ERC) awards these personal grants of two million euros to outstanding scientists. With this grant, the ERC stimulates groundbreaking research in Europe.

The Consolidator Grant is for promising researchers with seven to twelve years of experience since completing their PhD. They can use the grant to fund their team of researchers and support staff for a period of five years.

Prof. Else Starkenburg | EARLYMW

A detailed reconstruction of the early Milky Way from its most metal-poor stars

The EARLYMV project aims to understand the early history of our Galaxy, focusing on its first few billion years after the Big Bang. While missions like Gaia have provided critical insights into the Milky Way's past, its earliest epochs remain poorly understood. This is mainly due to the scarcity of well-studied early generations stars.

Next generation massively multiplexed instruments, in particular WEAVE and 4MOST, will soon enhance Gaia's data with radial velocities and chemical abundance patterns for these ancient stars.

Starkenburg and her team have been heavily involved preparing for these surveys and, with her ERC team, she is looking forward to conduct a first comprehensive census of very metal-poor (and probably old) stars across the Milky Way. Their work will investigate early enrichment processes across different Galactic environments, ultimately delivering a better understanding of the proto-galaxy that evolved into the Milky Way.