After a year and a half in Madrid, I am finally back in Leeds to finish my Ph.D. It has been a great experience to work at ESAC, mingling with many different experts in a variety of fields and having the chance of researching with a team of Gaia experts. I also left behind good friends and lovely experiences in the Centro the Astrobiología. Although I have been there for many months, it seems that it was a very short secondment. I hope I will be able to visit again in the future.
However, now it is time to look to the future. After a few weeks of trying to settle down in Leeds and looking for accommodation, I am finally intensively back to work as if I have never left, very excited and motivated with the new part of the project and the promising results. It is very nice to be back and I was very welcomed by my old colleagues. Everything seems to be as nice and good as I left it, although a number of PhD students have successfully finished and moved on with their careers, new faces have arrived to the office. It is time to work hard because we will attend a Gaia symposium at ESTEC in about one month, where we wish to present a draft of our new results. I am very excited about sharing them with the Gaia community and it will be also great to get to know the ESA headquarters at the Netherlands.
We also started to organize our own conference, which will stand as the final milestone of the STARRY project. It will be held in Leeds on the 18-21 June this year. As a part of the LOC, I am learning a lot about how to organize this kind of events and all the work that requires the planning and organising, including all the minor things that have to be taken into account. I think it is a great opportunity that I have the chance to be part of the organization as it will be a great experience for the future. It is very exciting!