Prof. Ana I. Gomez de Castro
Instituto de Astronomia y Geodesia (CSIC-UCM)
Fac. de CC Matematicas
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
28040 Madrid, Spain

Ph. 34-913944578 (office)  34-659783338 (mobile)
Email: aig@mat.ucm.es


SUMMARY of my JAMBOREE PRESENTATION


My name is Ana Ines Gomez de Castro and I'm professor (profesora
titular) of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Dept. of
Astronomy & Geodesy, Faculty of Mathematics).

As a researcher, I'm fascinated by the role of magnetic fields in
astrophysical processes: the role of differential rotation in
amplifying the field and generating instabilities, the generation
of outflows or the interaction between stars and accretion disks
when the field acts as a mediator for the release of gravitational
energy. Most of my work is related with the understanding of these
processes (both theory and observations) during the formation of
solar-like stars though recently, I've become interested on the
impact of the radiation released in this process on the chemical
evolution of the protoplanetary (and young planetary) disks. This
radiation is mainly emitted in the UV thus, most of my
observational work is done in this range.
I've done also some "research excursions" into the understanding of
the role of magnetic fields in the halo/disk interaction in our
Galaxy and lately, on the impact of the disk flaring activity in
the X-ray radiation from AGNs.

I'm a long term scientific visitor at ESAC for several reasons:
- A fair fraction of my research is related with space astronomy,
   especially UV astronomy. I'm coordinating the Network for
   UltraViolet Astrophysics (NUVA, http://www.ucm.es/info/nuva/)
   funded by the European Union in the FP6 as a part of the
   networking activities of OPTICON (www.astro-opticon.org).
   I'm also the Spanish PI of the World Space Observatory (an
   international endevour to build a 1.7m UV telescope equipped
   with imaging and spectroscopic instrumentation to be launched in
   2010 and led by ROSCOSMOS, the Russian Space Agency).
- To favour the interaction between the UCM and ESAC. The trainee
   program at ESAC (Practicas Curriculares) was set in the course
   2000/01 as a result of this interaction. UCM (Mathematics
   School) is currently interested in extending this interaction to
   joint scientific projects associated with algorithmic research
   and data mining, especially within the context of the Virtual
   Observatory.