Researcher Mar Carretero receives the third La Vanguardia Science Award for her discovery of the Milky Way’s runaway starstrelles fugitives de la Via Làctia
Predoctoral researcher Mar Carretero Castrillo, from the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) and the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC), is the third awardee of the new edition of the La Vanguardia Science Award. This competition, promoted since 2011 by the newspaper La Vanguardia (Godó Group), and the Catalunya La Pedrera Foundation, aims to reduce the gender gap, promote excellence in the field of research and give visibility to the most relevant contributions of women researchers.
Predoctoral researcher Mar Carretero Castrillo, from the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) and the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC), is the third awardee of the new edition of the La Vanguardia Science Award. This competition, promoted since 2011 by the newspaper La Vanguardia (Godó Group), and the Catalunya La Pedrera Foundation, aims to reduce the gender gap, promote excellence in the field of research and give visibility to the most relevant contributions of women researchers.
The award highlights Carretero’s role as the first author of the discovery of a population of massive runaway stars in the Milky Way — in collaboration with experts Marc Ribó and Josep Maria Paredes (UB, ICCUB and IEEC) — a scientific finding that provides a new perspective on the evolution of massive stars (Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2023).
This year, the selection committee of the Vanguardia de la Ciencia award chose eight research projects led by women researchers as finalists for the 2024 edition. Readers of the newspaper published by the Godó Group chose the winners in a vote that was open until 20 October, online. Finally, the three most voted research projects will be presented at an event open to the public on 27 November at the Pedrera building in Barcelon
The enigmas of the Milky Way’s runaway stars
The discovery led by Mar Carretero is a new scientific contribution to the Gaia mission, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) most ambitious mission to study the history and structure of the Milky Way. Since its inception, this flagship project has involved astronomers and engineers from the Department of Quantum Physics and Astrophysics of the University of Barcelona, the ICCUB and the IEEC.
These findings provide key data for understanding the critical processes in massive stellar evolution that lead to the ejection of star clusters or binary systems after supernova explosions.
“This study not only expands our understanding of the dynamics of massive stars, but also outlines a new scenario for future research on high-energy systems associated with runaway stars”.
The La Vanguardia Science Awards
The 2024 La Vanguardia Science Awards have honoured with the first prize the team of Marta Alonso and Iker Ausejo, from the Clínica Universidad de Navarra, for their innovative research to locate a therapeutic target for paediatric tumours. Researchers Ana Paredes and Mercedes Ricote, from the National Centre for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC), received the second prize for outstanding contributions in the field of cardiovascular research.
In the 2024 edition, another of the studies chosen by the selection committee of the La Vanguardia Science Award focused on the research against malaria published in the journal The Lancet Global Health, and was led by Raquel González, medical epidemiologist and Ramón y Cajal postdoctoral researcher at the UB’s Department of Medicine of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, adjunct at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), and Clara Menéndez, director of the Maternal, Child and Reproductive Health Initiative of the ISGlobal.