Ása Skúladóttir graduated in 2016 with a PhD from the Kapteyn Institute at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. She spent three years, 2016-2019 as a post-doc at MPIA, Heidelberg, Germany, after which she moved to the University of a Florence.
During her career, Ása Skúladóttir has worked on Galactic Archeology, focusing mainly on chemical evolution and the chemical abundance analysis of metal-poor stars, particularly those in dwarf galaxies. Her interests include the first stars, nucleosynthesis and the build-up of the Milky Way environment.
She is the Principal Investigator of the large upcoming spectroscopic survey 4DWARFS: 4MOST survey of dwarf galaxies and their stellar streams. 4DWARFS is envisioned to collect data in the years 2025-2029 with the 4MOST instrument at VISTA, in Paranal, Chile. The survey aims to provide stellar ages, radial velocities and chemical abundances for ~130,000 stars in both dwarf galaxies and stellar streams around the Milky Way.
Personal information
Dr. Ása Skúladóttir
Researcher, RTD-A
Florence University, Physics and Astronomy Department
Via Sansone 1, 50019, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
email: asa.skuladottir@unifi.it
Education
2016 PhD in Astronomy, Kapteyn Institute, University of Groningen, the Netherlands. “Carbon, sulphur and zinc in the Sculptor dwarf spheroidal galaxy”, under the supervision of Eline Tolstoy.
2010 MSc in Astronomy, Dark Cosmology Center, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. “The Faint Afterglow Spectra of GRB 090809 and GRB 100425A”, under the supervision of Johan Fynbo.
2006 BSc in Physics, University of Iceland.
Positions
2021−2024 RTD-A, Physics and Astronomy Department, University of Florence, Italy.
2019−2020 Post-doctoral researcher, Physics and Astronomy Department, University of Florence, Italy.
2016−2019 Post-doctoral researcher, MPIA, Heidelberg, Germany.
2011−2016 PhD Student, Kapteyn Institute, University of Groningen, the Netherlands.
Awards and Recognition
2023 The ERC Starting Grant, 1.5 million €.
2022 Idea for Excellent Science, 1st Price (2500 €), University of Florence.
2021 Wwarded 520 000 fibre hours in the 4MOST 5-year spectroscopic survey, as the PI of the 4DWARFS survey. Estimated worth of data 2-3 million €.
2018 Conference price for best poster at “Supernovae - From Simulations to Observations and Nucleosynthetic Fingerprints” (50 €), Bad Honnef, Germany.
Invited talks (accepted)
11/2023 Metal Production and Distribution in a Hierarchical Universe – II, Santiago, Chile. Chemical evolution in dwarf galaxies.
05/2023 CeNam Frontiers in Nuclear Astrophysics 2023, East Lansing, USA. Dwarf galaxies’ view of the heavy elements.
05/2023 IFPU Focus Week: Enigmatic first stars and where to find them, Trieste, Italy, Tracing PopIII SN with extreme energies.
10/2022 4MOST Science Presentations series, online. 4DWARFS: 4MOST survey of dwarf galaxies and their stellar streams.
05/2022 SNAQ: Schools on Nuclear Astrophysics Questions, online. First Stars - The importance of accurate stellar abundances.
03/2022 Russbach School on Nuclear Astrophysics, Russbach, Austria. The r-process in dwarf galaxies: Evidence for >4 Gyr timescales of NSM.
10/2021 HRMOS - Science workshop, hybrid meeting, Florence Italy and online. HRMOS for the Local group and dwarf galaxies.
12/2020 JINA Horizons, JINA-CEE and IReNA virtual meeting. Dwarf galaxies and CEMP stars.
07/2020 4MOST community Workshop 2020, ESO virtual meeting. 4DWARFS: 4MOST sur- vey of dwarf galaxies and their stellar streams.
05/2020 The science and technical development of HRMOS (High-resolution multi- object spectrograph on the VLT), virtual meeting. The science case for HRMOS in dwarf galaxies.
09/2019 AG 2019: Annual Meeting of the German Astronomical Society in 2019, Stutt- gart, Germany. Galactic archaeology with dwarf galaxies.
09/2019 CEMP stars as probes of first-star nucleosynthesis, the IMF, and Galactic assembly, Geneve, Switzerland. CEMP-no stars in dwarf galaxies.
11/2018 Chemical Evolution and Nucleosynthesis across the Galaxy, Heidelberg, Germany. Heavy elements in dwarf spheroidal galaxies.
06/2018 AAS Meeting-in-a-Meeting: Stellar Abundances in Dwarf Galaxies, Denver, USA. Neutron-capture elements in the Sculptor dwarf spheroidal galaxy.
Contributed talks at International conferences
06/2022 HACK100: Past, Present and Future of Astrophysical Spectroscopy, Trieste, Italy.
07/2018 The Metal-poor Galaxy, Ringberg, Germany.
09/2017 Chemical Evolution of the Universe - the 5th GMT Meeting, Tarrytown, NY, USA.
06/2017 EWASS - European Week of Science and Astronomy, Prague, Check Republic.
01/2017 Beyond the Solar Neighbourhood: Entering into the Gaia Era, Sexten, Italy.
06/2015 First stars, galaxies, and black holes: now and then, University of Groningen, NL.
04/2014 The first stars and galaxies, Edinburgh, Scotland.
Invited Colloquia (accepted)
02/2025 Lund Observatory, Sweden
11/2023 Joint Bologna colloquium, Italy
12/2022 Uppsala University, Sweden.
11/2021 Joint ESO/ALMA Colloquium, online.
10/2018 Observatoire de Genève, Switzerland.
06/2018 Max Planck institute for Astronomy (MPIA), Germany.
02/2018 Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, Nice, France.
12/2017 Arcetri Observatory, Florence, Italy.
10/2017 Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma, Italy.
04/2017 Uppsala University, Sweden.
03/2017 NAOJ, Tokyo, Japan.
02/2017 IPMU, Tokyo, Japan.
11/2016 GEPI, Observatoire de Paris, France.
09/2015 ESO, Chile.
Leading roles in scientific committees
2023 Chair of the 4MOST Galactic Pipeline Review panel.
2021− Voting member on the policy-making Scientific Coordinator Board (SCB) for 4MOST
2020− Lead of the science case Dwarf galaxies and the Local Group (with Vanessa Hill) for the proposed instrument HRMOS/FLASH, an high-resolution, multi-object spectrograph intended for the ESO VLT in 2030. The project is currently led by Sofia Randich (INAF-Florence/Arcetri), Gayandhi De Silva (AAO/Macquarie, Australia), and Eline Tolstoy (Kapteyn institute, University of Groningen, the Netherlands); while Andrea Tozzi (INAF-Florence/Arcetri) is coordinating the technical work.
2019− In charge of the fast-track evaluation for the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT).
2019− The head of the Observing Programmes Committee (OPC), and the Icelandic representative, for the NOT in La Palma in the Canary Islands. The OPC decides on the use of telescope time, based on the submitted proposals.
Major Collaborations
2022− 4MOST Milky Way Halo surveys.
2021− 4GRoundS: 4MOST Gaia RRLyrae Survey (co-I: Á. Skúladóttir).
2019− 4DWARFS: 4MOST survey of dwarf galaxies and their stellar streams: Small but fundamental (PI: Á. Skúladóttir).
2019− WEAVE: Galactic archaeology survey.
2015− DART: The Dwarf Abundances and Radial velocities Team.
List of successful observational proposals
2023 Skúladóttir, Salvadori, Koutsouridou, Aguado, Lucchesi, ESO VLT/UVES 9 hours. True descendant of a Pair Instability Supernovae.
2023 Aguado (PI), Skúladóttir, Salvadori, Koutsouridou, Vanni, ESO VLT/UVES 11.2 hours. Unveiling the Chemical Imprint of Pair-Instability Supernova.
2022 Jakobsson (PI), Skúladóttir, Salvadori, Aguado, NOT/FIES, 2 nights, PISN-explorer: hunting the descendants of the very massive first stars.
2022 Skúladóttir(PI), Aguado, Primas, Tolstoy. HST, 44 cycles Signatures of neutron star mergers hidden in Gaia Enceladus.
2022 Aguado (PI), Skúladóttir, Salvadori, Vanni, Koutsouridou. ESO VLT/UVES, 1 hour. A Unique Descendant of the First Very Massive Stars
2021 Skúladóttir (PI), Tolstoy, Aguado, Salvadori. ESO VLT/UVES, 36.5 hours. Signatur- es of neutron star mergers hidden in Gaia Enceladus.
2021 Skúladóttir (PI), Amarsi, Arcones, Battaglia, Buder, Côté, Campbell, Eichler, Feuillet, Gallagher, Gelli, Hampel, Hanke, Hansen, Hasselquist, Hill, Ibata, Kacharov, Karakas, Koch, Lind, Lugaro, Massari, Nordlander, Reichert, Rossi, Ruiter, Salvadori, Seitenzahl, Tolstoy, Xilaki-Dornbusch. Letter of Intent successful: Invitation to submit a proposal in Dec. 2020. ESO 4MOST, 523 000 fibre hours. 4MOST survey of dwarf galaxies and their stellar streams (4DWARFS): Small but fundamental.
2021 Ibata (PI), Battaglia, Bellazzini, Bianchini, Clementini, Famaey, Garofalo, Hill, Martin, Mucciarelli, Monari, Posti, Siebert, Skúladóttir, Sollima, Wegg. Letter of Intent success- ful: Invitation to submit a proposal in Dec. 2020. ESO 4MOST, 144 000 fibre hours. 4GRoundS: 4MOST Gaia RRLyrae Survey.
2021 Skúladóttir (PI), Tolstoy, Amarsi, Salvadori. ESO VLT/UVES, 7 hours. Zero- metallicity hypernova uncovered by an ultra metal-poor star in Sculptor.
2020 Skúladóttir (PI), Amarsi, Salvadori. ESO VLT/UVES, 6 nights. Are CEMP stars carbon-enhanced? First stars revisited in light of 3D non-LTE effects.
2019 Hansen (PI), Skúladóttir, Hanke, Reichert, Arcones, Bonifacio, Caffau, Cescutti, Côté, Eichler, Korn, Metzger, Ludwig, Meynet, Jablonka, Travaglio. ESO VLT/UVES, 30hr. Hafnium: Probing nuclear fission in the rapid neutron-capture process.,
2019 Massari (PI), Battaglia, Fritz, Helmi, Irwin, Mucciarelli, Skúladóttir, Taibi, Tolstoy. ESO VLT/FLAMES, 10hr. The last pieces of the puzzle: coupling FLAMES and Gaia for two Ultra-Faint dwarf galaxies.
2018 Skúladóttir (PI), Tolstoy, Salvadori, Hill. ESO VLT/FLAMES, 3 nights. The unexplored halo of the Sculptor dwarf spheroidal galaxy.
2018 Tolstoy (PI), Helmi, Massari, Irwin, Battaglia, Skúladóttir, Hill, Brown, Posti, Jablonka, Starkenburg, Cicuéndez, Breddels, Hagen, Fraternali, Salvadori. ESO VLT/FLAMES + X-Shooter, 11 nights. VLT follow-up of individual red giant branch stars with Gaia DR2 proper motions in 4 nearby dwarf galaxies.
2017 Tolstoy (PI), Battaglia, Helmi, Skúladóttir, Salvadori, Hill, Jablonka, Starkenburg, Irwin, Breddels, Hagen, Massari, Posti. ESO VLT/FLAMES, 2 nights. FLAMES meets Gaia: a 3D vision of the Sculptor Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy.
2014 Skúladóttir (PI), Tolstoy, Shetrone, Starkenburg, Salvadori, Hill, Jablonka. ESO VLT/ X-Shooter, 2 nights. A census of carbon-enhanced metal-poor stars in the Sculptor dwarf spheroidal galaxy.
2013 Tolstoy (PI), Hill, Skúladóttir, Starkenburg, Pettini, Salvadori. ESO VLT/FLAMES, 4 hours. The first carbon-rich metal-poor star in the Sculptor dSph?
2013 Tolstoy (PI), Hill, Pettini, Salvadori, Skúladóttir. ESO VLT/FLAMES, 7 hours. Zinc in Sculptor - Connecting present-day dwarf galaxies and high-redshift DLAs.
2011 Tolstoy (PI), Hill, Pettini, Salvadori, Skúladóttir, Lemasle. ESO VLT/FLAMES, 12 hours. Sulphur in Sculptor -Dwarf Galaxies: Making the Connection to DLAs.
Conference Organization
Participation in scientific and local organization committees (SOC/LOC) for international conferences:
06/2022 Invited SOC member for the workshop: The Nordic Optical Telescope - A telescope for the future.
06/2019 Invited SOC member for the conference: EWASS Special Session 21: Metal-poor stars in Milky Way surveys, Lyon, France.
11/2018 LOC member for the conference: Chemical Evolution and Nucleosynthesis across the Galaxy, Heidelberg, Germany.
07/2018 LOC member for the conference: The Metal-poor Galaxy, Ringberg, Germany.
06/2015 LOC member for the conference: First stars, galaxies, and black holes: now and then, University of Groningen, NL.
Supervision of students
2019-2023 Co-supervision (with Prof. Stefania Salvadori) of two PhD students, Martina Rossi and Irene Vanni, at the University of Florence.
2020-2021 Co-supervision (with Prof. Eline Tolstoy) of a MSc student, Stefan Kuipers, Thorium, europium and s-process elements in Galactic halo vs. Gaia-Enceladus. Graduated in Aug- ust 2021. Role: Co-project creator and daily supervisor.
2019-2020 Co-supervision (with Prof. Eline Tolstoy) of a MSc student, Danny Sardjan, X-Shooter Observations of Carbon-Enhanced Metal-poor Stars in Sculptor. Graduated in May 2020. Role: Co-project creator and daily supervisor.
Teaching experience
2021- Teacher in the Master course: Stellar Evolution and Nucleosynthesis at the Physics and Astronomy Department in Florence University.
2019 Teaching Assistant in the course: Stellar Physics, in the Physics department at the University of Heidelberg.
2018 Teaching Assistant in the course: Chemical Evolution and Stellar Populations of the Galaxy, in the Physics department at the University of Heidelberg.
2017, 2019 Guest lecturer in the course Cosmology II at the University of Florence, Italy.
2013-2014 Graduate Teaching Assistant, University of Groningen: Cosmology (three semesters).
2011 Physics and Science teacher for one semester (full time), Fjölbrautaskóli Suðurnesja (Upper secondary school in Iceland, 16-20 year old students).
2005-2008 Teaching Assistant, Experimental Physics, University of Iceland: The courses Physics I and Physics II for undergraduate students in Engineering.
Public outreach
2023 Public lecture for the general public in Iceland, interview in an Icelandic newspaper and radio show.
2023 Interviews in various Italian and Icelandic newspapers (>5 papers in total), in relation to my ERC Starting grant.
2022 Public lecture for the Astronomical Society in Iceland.
2021 Interviews in various Italian newspapers, in relation to my discovery of the most metal-poor star known outside of the Milky Way.
2019 A member of the Icelandic committee for the project “NameExoWorlds II", organized by the International Astronomical Union (I.A.U.), which allows the public in every country to choose names for exoplanets and their host stars (www.nameexoworlds.iau.org).
2015 Interview for a newspaper in Iceland, Fréttablaðið, regarding the discovery of the first CEMP star in the Sculptor dwarf spheroidal galaxy.
Other experience
2013 Attended the 43rd Saas Fee Winter School: “Star formation in galaxy evolution: connecting numerical models to reality”, in in Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland.
2007-2008 Project manager in the department Internal Control, Environment and Safety in Reykjavik Energy. Work included internal quality control and being editor for the annual en- vironmental report of the company for the year 2007.
2006 One week physics seminar in Denmark. Courses involved particle physics, astrophysics and biophysics.
2006 Summer employee on the theoretical project: Mesoscopic transfer of electrons. The Uni- versity of Iceland
2005 Summer student at CERN, The European Organization for Nuclear Research. Took classes and worked at the ISOLDE facility, a department that focuses on nuclear physics. Worked under the supervision of dr. Pierre Delahay on the project Quadrupole excitation in a Penning Trap. The work involved programming in Matlab and experimental work.
2004-2005 On the board of Stigull (English: Gradient), the student association of Physics and Mat- hematics students at the University of Iceland.
2004 Worked in an Icelandic company, Gems International, as a summer employee and a part time employee in the autumn. Worked in creating workbooks in Mathematics for 6-15 year old children.
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