Conny Aerts

Conny Aerts obtained her mathematics diploma from Antwerp University in 1988 and defended her PhD thesis in astrophysics at the Catholic University of Leuven in 1993. She was a postdoctoral fellow of the Fund for Scientific Research of Flanders from 1993 until 2001, performing numerous short stays abroad in Europe, Chile and the USA. She was appointed as lecturer (2001) and subsequently as full professor (2007) at Leuven University. Since 2004, she also occupies the Chair in Asteroseismology at the Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. She was vice-president (2000-2003) and president (2003-2006) of Commission 27: Variable Stars of the International Astronomical Union. Until 2008, she was the supervisor of 30 Master and 10 PhD students. She teaches 5 astrophysics courses of each 6 ECTS per year. She presently leads a research team of 8 PhD students, 6 postdocs and 1 software engineer. Conny Aerts is married and mother of two children, born in 1994 and 1998.

Conny's research expertise concerns stellar astrophysics with subjects stellar structure, stellar evolution, variable stars and asteroseismology. She is a member of several international expert committees and advisory bodies in Belgium, the Netherlands and at ESA. She is also Belgian co-Investigator of the CoRoT space mission. Her main interest in the Gaia mission is in the field of variable stars, as member of CU7: Variability Processing. She was appointed as Gaia Science Team member as photometry and data analysis scientist in 2007. In 2009 Conny joined the ESA Space Science Advisory Commitee (SSAC) and consequently resigned from the Gaia Science Team.

Conny's home page is here.

[Published: 03/12/2007 | Updated: 30/01/2009]