The "Scientific Vocations" programme, this year's AstroFest 2024, will include the participation of two young engineers, Haroldo Lorenzo and Alberto Hernández, both from the instrumentation area of the IAC.

These professionals will visit a number of educational centres to inform students about their interests and explain how they decided to study a type of engineering linked to astrophysics.

We will have the possibility to see them in a public and informative activity on Friday 22nd November, at 20:00 h., in the Palacio Salazar in Santa Cruz de La Palma.

Free activity, until full capacity is reached.

Event organised by SODEPAL and financed by the Tourism Department of the Cabildo de La Palma, with the collaboration of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias - IAC.

Who are they?

Alberto Hernández Fernández is an Industrial Engineer specialising in Electrical Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Madrid. Born in S/C de La Palma, since 2019 he has been working as an engineer in the Electronics Department of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), having participated in several projects of the Instrumentation Area of the IAC, among which GTCAO-LGS (development of the electronics for the adaptive optics and laser guide star of GRANTECAN). Currently, his work focuses on the design of digital electronics, particularly on the development of a data acquisition and signal processing system for a new type of superconducting detectors called MKIDs. His interests include hardware design, digital design, FPGAs, SoCs and digital signal processing systems.

Haroldo Lorenzo Hernández is a Mechanical Engineer at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC). He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC) and a Master's degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Seville (US). Throughout his career, he has mainly focused on engineering projects in the field of astrophysics. Before joining the IAC, he worked at the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), where he was involved in both instrumentation and telescope activities. At the IAC, he has extended his experience through instrument design and integration tasks for projects such as DALI (Dark-photons & Axion-Like Particles Interferometer), TMS (The Tenerife Microwave Spectrometer) and QUIJOTE (Q U I Joint Tenerife CMB Experiment). It is also part of the Vacuum and Cryogenic Development Line in the IAC instrumentation area, whose aim is to improve cryogenic technologies applied to astrophysics and to collect data to optimise instrumentation capabilities in future projects.