With most international conferences being cancelled, we’re facing some issues:

• How can we make our PhD students known for their work?
• How can they start new collaborations, independently of their supervisors?
• How can they advertise for their papers?

So here’s the idea: what if we create a series of invited seminars, given by young researchers, dedicated to Asteroseismology? We are happy to announce that the Good Vibrations Seminar Series is up and running. You can read about the initiative on the website.

Call for applications

The steering committee is welcoming applications from PhD students in Asteroseismology. The procedure is simple and can be found here: Apply!

In order to perform the selection and distribute the seminars in time, it is important that students declare their interest in advance (i.e. before the end of 2020); the title and abstract can be preliminary at this stage.

Please note that priority will be given to students who finish their PhD in 2021. The steering committee will aim to ensure appropriate diversity of both seminar topics and speakers.

If you want to include your group in the initiative, you are most welcome to join. If you have any further questions, please get in touch with the steering committee.

WP12 (STESCI) are holding their third workshop in Barcelona, Spain, between 19th and 22nd November 2019.

STESCI currently includes over 100 researchers from 11 different countries, across Europe, North America, and South America. Its activities are spread over 53 sub-work packages, which tasks have been defined. However scientific issues remain to be debated in order to ensure optimized determination of stellar parameters with the accuracy required by the mission, yet unreached.

This workshop intend to gather STESCI members, with the aim of discussing and taking decisions about the best scientific options to derive stellar parameters with the uncertainties requested by the PLATO mission.

For more information, please see the workshop's website.

WP12 (STESCI) are holding their second workshop in Messina, Sicily, Italy, between 22nd and 25th May 2018.

The first part of the workshop will consist of presentations which will review the scientific issues and related tasks achieved since the previous workshop (held in Paris in May 2016). Decisions on chosen scientific options will then be made, and approved.

In the second part of the workshop, scientific presentations and discussions will take place about issues that still remain to be clarified and solved. Related actions, and scientific work to be done, will be decided.

Places are limited; for more information, please see the workshop's website.

WP120, the Core Stellar Science branch of the PSM has a new website. Please check it out at this link (https://plato-stesci.lesia.obspm.fr/).

The Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço (IA), Universidade do Porto, Portugal will organise the fifth PLATO Week that is scheduled from 24/10/2017 to 26/10/2017. For questions concerning the local organisation please contact pw05@iastro.pt. Please note that attendance is by invitation only.

For more information, please see the meeting website.

A research team led by PSM member Andrew Miglio (University of Birmingham) has published a white paper on the pre-print arXiv that describes how PLATO can contribute to the field of Galactic archaeology.

They identify key outstanding questions related to the formation and evolution of the Milky Way. Answering these questions requires precise, accurate ages for large samples of stars, such as those that will be provided by PLATO's asteroseismic data (through WP12, Stellar Science). They demonstrate that the capabilities of PLATO are such that answering their key questions is possible.

The paper can be found on ADS.