Meet the members of the SWATNet External Advisory Board!

SWATNet project is pleased to announce the composition of the External Advisory Board (EAB). The EAB consists of six members who have confirmed their eagerness to be involved in the Space Weather Awareness Training Network in the role of advisor.

SWATNet EAB will assist and facilitate the decisions made by the beneficiaries at the General Assembly and provide suggestions related to the research and training activities in SWATNet.

List of EAB members (in alphabetical order):

	Consuelo Cid Tortuero University of Alcala, Madrid, Spain https://www.uah.es/es/estudios/profesor/Consuelo-Cid-Tortuero/
	Francesca Zuccarello Università deli Studi di Catania, Italy https://www.dfa.unict.it/corsi/LM-17/docenti/francesca.zuccarello
	Mateja Dumbović Hvar Observatory, University of Zagreb, Croatia https://oh.geof.unizg.hr/index.php/about-hvar-observatory/staff/mateja
	Michail Mathioudakis Queen’s University Belfast, United Kingdom https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/persons/michail-mathioudakis
	Michele Piana University of Genoa, Italy https://rubrica.unige.it/personale/VUZBWlJo
	Šimon Mackovjak Institute of the Experimental Physics of the Slovakian Academy of Sciences in Košice, Slovakia https://www.sav.sk/?lang=sk&doc=user-org-user&user_no=10735

It is foreseen that the EAB members will be performing the following tasks:

• Advise on training activities to help the consortium ensure the effective training of all 12 SWATNet Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) in accordance with the project’s objectives;
• Advise on research and outreach activities performed by the 12 SWATNet ESRs;
• Participate in the Annual Meetings (three such meetings are planned in total in the project) and in other relevant meetings (no more than three in total in the course of the project).

“It wasn’t an easy and straight-forward task to find advisors for SWATNet due to many reasons. One of the reasons was that Space Weather, while being top-notch scientific field, especially in Europe, feels like a very limited domain when it comes to finding new people to work with and involve them in long-term activities such as advisory committees and boards. And this is a challenge for the future for SWATNet ESRs – to enlarge the Space Weather cohort and form new collaborations!” – says Dr Anastasiya Boiko, VaBo Consult, SWATNet Project Manager.

With the recruited EAB members we believe we achieved three important things, in the spirit of the objectives set in SWATNet project:

• gender balance – in the EAB we have three women and three men, who are accomplished professional in their field. This way we attempted to demonstrate that it is possible for men and women to be equally engaged in science and grow professionally in research, which may provide extra-motivation to SWATNet female ESRs and other PhD students outside the network.
• country distribution – SWATNet enlarged its geographical distribution by involving ESR members from two additional countries from outside the network (Croatia, and Slovakia) where SWATNet will have direct impact. At the same time we strengthened SWATNet representation in UK and Italy by collaborating with ESR members from these countries.
• diverse expertise – multiple research directions linked to space weather and heliophysics, which EAB members represent, complemented by the experience of EAB members in various EU- and industry-funded projects will be without doubt of a great asset to SWATNet.

SWATNet project is looking forward to make collaboration with EAB members efficient, productive and advantageous for both sides.