Introducing the new Ombudspersons

by Joe Liske on 2022-05-22

The 4MOST Project is pleased to announced that two Ombudspersons are now available for all 4MOST members. The role of the Ombudspersons is to provide informal, confidential, nonjudgmental, impartial, and independent advice, and to arrange mediation for 4MOST members for the purpose of dispute resolution (see the full guidelines). The two Ombudspersons are Chiara Battistini cbattistini@lsw.uni-heidelberg.de of Heidelberg University and Alastair Edge of Durham University. The search for a third Ombudsperson will be launched soon.

Chiara studies the evolution of element abundances in the Milky Way. She was a PhD student representative on the departmental board at Lund Observatory and is currently a postdoc representative at the Zentrum für Astronomie (ZAH) in Heidelberg. She has been involved in 4MOST since 2015 and is an active member of the Milky Way Halo High Resolution Survey and several working groups (IWG1, IWG2 and IWG7). She is also the science representative of ZAH in the 4MOST STSC.

What motivated Chiara to become a 4MOST Ombudsperson? “Having been involved in 4MOST for several years gives me a good perspective on the full project, all its ramifications and the potential issues that might appear. At the same time, being an early career scientist and not involved in any high level position inside 4MOST makes me easily approachable in case of issues, especially from peers. I also think that during these years I showed dedication and availability, so also for more senior scientists I should be easily reachable and they would feel that I can take care of the issues they might have in a concrete way.”

Alastair works on galaxy clusters and AGN using radio, X-ray and optical observations and is a member of the Galaxy Clusters Survey. He has been the departmental Equality and Diversity lead, sat on a number of university wide committees, and is co-Chair of the LSST:UK Board.

Regarding his motivation to become a 4MOST Ombudsperson he says: “I have extensive experience of large international collaborations over the last three decades. These projects range from the ROSAT All-Sky Survey to SKA precursor radio surveys. I am familiar with the breadth and diversity of the 4MOST science projects and the groups leading them. From experience, I am aware of the importance of a strong collaborative culture within projects and will strive to uphold and promote that throughout the 4MOST community. This role may be viewed as more of a “referee” but I hope that I can be as much a “coach” ensuring that the early career researchers that are so vital to the success of 4MOST are given the space to thrive.”