Prof Conny Aerts
Director of the Institute of Astronomy; Vice-Dean Communication & Outreach; Faculty of Science, Leuven University, Belgium
Gender perspectives from the ERC evaluation panels
Parallel 2: Gender perspectives from the ERC: From application to funding
Professor Conny Aerts studied mathematics at Antwerp University and got a PhD in astrophysics from Leuven University, where she is currently Director of the Institute of Astronomy as well as Vice-Dean Communication & Outreach of the Faculty of Science. She also leads the Chair in Asteroseismology at the Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. She was recently awarded a second Advanced Grant by the panel PE9 Universe Science of the ERC.
Professor Aerts supervised 40 Master thesis students and 22 graduated PhD students, while she has been teaching several courses in Astronomy & Astrophysics annually. In 2010, she was elected Honorary Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, UK and she is thus far the only woman to have received the Francqui (Belgian Nobel) prize in Exact Sciences (2012) since its creation in 1934. Professor Aerts is member of various international expert committees and advisory boards and is active in several mentor-mentee programmes.