Francesca Borg - Personal Website

About Me

Hi, I'm Francesca, an astrophysicist from Malta, and I'm passionate about studying galaxies and their stars to learn more about our home in the Universe - the Milky Way. I graduated with a BSc. in Mathematics and Physics from the University of Malta, and am currently pursuing an Erasmus Mundus Joint Master in Astrophysics and Space Science (MASS), funded by an EMJM scholarship. After doing my first semester at the University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’ in Italy, and my second semester at the University of Belgrade in Serbia, I am currently following third semester courses, and working on a research internship at the University of Belgrade in remote collaboration with the University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’, as well as Côte d'Azur University in France.

Research Interests

galactic dynamics - galaxy formation and evolution - galaxy morphology and classification - stellar astrophysics - Milky Way archaeology - computational simulations for astrophysics

CV

A quick summary of my career so far. Click here if you would prefer to download my CV as a PDF.

Research Experience

“A risk assessment on exposure to radon in residential environments in Malta” Jul 2023 - Sep 2023
Research support assistant for the National Commission for the Protection from Ionising and Non-Ionising Radition, Malta
In-depth assessment of the risk of lung cancer posed to the Maltese population by indoor radon gas concentrations in residential dwellings, including an in-depth review of the literature as well as numerical computations using statistics on Maltese demographics and local trends in smoking habits and formal presentation of the findings to the Commission.

“The stellar populations trapped at the L4/L5 Lagrange (corotation) points of a bar” Sep 2022 - Jun 2023
B.Sc. thesis, University of Malta. Supervisors: Prof. Joseph Caruana, Prof. Victor P. Debattista
Abstract: Bars are prevalent features in disc galaxies and play an important role in driving secular evolution, especially through resonances. Stars at corotation resonance with the bar are known to librate around the stable Lagrange points (L4, L5). Here, we investigate the properties of corotating stars by performing an orbital frequency analysis on a subsample of stars in an N-body+SPH galactic simulation to obtain corotating and non-corotating subsamples. Trends in variation of ages and metallicities are investigated by sectioning the galactic plane into radial and azimuthal bins, and comparing the properties of both categories of stars within each bin, using a K-S test to check statistical significance. We confirm the existence of important systematic differences between the distributions of the ages and metallicities of the corotating stars with respect to the surrounding non-corotating stars. Trends in age are found to vary radially and suggest that corotating stars are dragged away from the corotation radius in both directions, whereas the metallicities of stars in corotation are found to be distinctly higher.

Galactic simulations research project Jul 2021 - Sep 2021
University of Malta / University of Central Lancashire joint Galactic Dynamics Group
Processing and analysis of a galactic simulation using Python, particularly PyNbody and AGAMA packages. Tasks included rendering galactic components, extracting statistics from data to produce plots, and identifying and analyzing trends.

Education

Erasmus Mundus Joint Master in Astrophysics and Space Science (EMJM MASS) Sep 2023 - present
S1 University of Rome 'Tor Vergata' / Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata, Italy
S2 University of Belgrade / Универзитет у Београду, Serbia
S3 University of Belgrade / Универзитет у Београду, Serbia

Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Mathematics and Physics Sep 2019 - Jun 2023
University of Malta / L-Università ta' Malta, Malta

ERASMUS Exchange in Mathematics, Physics and Astrophysics Sep 2021 - Jun 2022
Cardiff University / Prifysgol Caerdydd, Wales (UK)

Seminars & Talks

Contributed Seminars & Talks

38th Edition of the International Conference of Science Students (ICPS 2024), Free University of Tbilisi (Georgia) 4 - 11 Aug 2024
Poster presentation of undergraduate thesis “The stellar populations trapped at the L4/L5 Lagrange (corotation) points of a bar”.

XIII Student's Astronomical Workshop (SAW), Astronomical Society “Ruđer Bošković” (Serbia) 18 May 2024
Talk presenting undergraduate thesis “The stellar populations trapped at the L4/L5 Lagrange (corotation) points of a bar”.

Short Review Paper Seminar (PHY3208), University of Malta (Malta) 22 May 2023
Talk presenting short review paper titled “First light and the James Webb space telescope”.

Physics Seminar and Poster Session (PHY3209), University of Malta (Malta) 18 - 19 May 2023
Talk and poster presentation of undergraduate thesis “The stellar populations trapped at the L4/L5 Lagrange (corotation) points of a bar”.

S-Cubed’s Annual Science Conference, University of Malta (Malta) 19 Apr 2023
Talk presenting undergraduate thesis “The stellar populations trapped at the L4/L5 Lagrange (corotation) points of a bar”.

Attended Seminars & Talks

Tenth European Radio Interferometry School (ERIS 2024), Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC) (Spain) 30 Sep - 4 Oct 2024
School focused on providing a complete overview of radio interferometry covering fundamentals, data processing, and analysis techniques, along with practical hands-on sessions.

MASS Summer School 2024, Centre International de Valbonne (France) 15 - 19 Jul 2024
Summer school on "Observational Astronomy and Data Processing" organised by the Université Côte d'Azur as part of the MASS program.

7th Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC / IEEC) Summer School, Universitat Autonòma de Barcelona (UAB) (Spain) 2 - 11 Jul 2024
Summer school on "Multiwavelength Approach to Exoplanets".

7th Gravitational Wave Open Data Workshop, attending online 18 - 20 Apr 2024
Crash-course in gravitational-wave data analysis.

MASS Winter School 2023/2024, Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata (Italy) 15 - 19 Jan 2024
Winter school "From Stars to Cosmic Explosions: Bridging Scales in Astrophysical Data Analysis" organised by the Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata as part of the MASS program.

Honors & Awards

ICPS Participation Fee Waiver Award for attending ICPS 2024.
Erasmus Mundus Joint Master (EMJM) scholarship for MASS (2023 entrance).
Certificate of Merit in recognition of high quality of research in undergraduate thesis (2022– 2023).
Dean’s List for the Faculty of Science in recognition of academic achievement during academic years 2021– 2022 and 2022– 2023.

Technical Strengths

Programming: Python, Java
Software & Tools: LaTeX, Linux OS, SQL, Mathematica, Excel
Languages: Maltese (Native), English (Native), German (B1), Italian (A1)

Outreach & Volunteering

Volunteer o.b.o the Institute for Space Sciences and Astronomy (ISSA) at the open day for secondary schools organised by the University of Malta (Dec 2022).
Volunteer o.b.o the Department of Mathematics at the Science in the City festival (Sep 2022).
Mediterranean Youth Mathematical Championship (MYMC) participant as part of the Maltese team (Jun 2019) (featured on University of Malta Newspoint and Times of Malta).

CV last updated: 14 Sep 2024

Resources for Aspiring Astrophycisists

Early on in my career, I found the vast world of academia quite intimidating and somewhat confusing to navigate (sometimes I still do). Here, I have collected some resources which I had come across during my searches and may be helpful to any aspiring scientists who find themselves in a similar position. Most are centered around physics research, with a special focus on opportunities available to Maltese students looking to pursue a career in astrophysics.