Name: Swiss SKA Days 2025
Start: 2025-08-25T10:00:00+02:00
End: 2025-08-27T15:30:00+02:00
Location: ZHAW - SW Building

Swiss SKA Days 2025

from Monday, 25 August 2025 (10:00) to Wednesday, 27 August 2025 (15:30)

Monday, 25 August 2025

10:00 Registration and Welcome Coffee
Registration and Welcome Coffee
10:00 - 10:30
10:30 Opening Session (Day 1)
Opening Session (Day 1)
10:30 - 12:55
Room: SW E11 (Aula)
Contributions

10:30 Welcome - Jean-Paul Kneib (EPFL)

10:35 Welcome to Swiss SKA Days 2025 from ZHAW - Reto Steiner (ZHAW)

10:50 Welcome - Logistical information - Elena Gavagnin (ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences)

11:00 SKAO Progress update - Simon Berry (SKAO)

11:20 Switzerlands's perspective on the SKA radio-astronomy project - Simon Berger (CH - SERI)

11:30 SKACH Communications Update - Tanya Petersen (EPFL)

11:50 SKACH 2025-2028 Overview - Carolyn Crichton

12:15 Keynote - Learning in low frequency: Charting a path for SKA-Low from LOFAR lessons - Jessica Dempsey (ASTRON)
13:00 Lunch (Group photo)
Lunch (Group photo)
13:00 - 14:00
14:00 SKAO Regional Centers (SRCs)
SKAO Regional Centers (SRCs)
14:00 - 15:05
Room: SW E11 (Aula)
Contributions

14:00 Updates from SRCNet Project Scientists - Chin-Shin Chang (University of Geneva)

14:20 Swiss SRC contributions to SRCNet - Rohini Joshi (FHNW)

14:45 SRCNet Infrastructure updates for CHSRC - Carolina Lindqvist (EPFL) Dino Conciatore (ETHZ/CSCS)
15:05 Coffee Break
Coffee Break
15:05 - 15:35
Room: In front of Auditorium
15:35 CTAO-SKAO Synergies
CTAO-SKAO Synergies
15:35 - 16:35
Room: SW 401
Contributions

15:35 Unveiling the origins of high energy cosmic rays with the SKAO and CTAO - Katharine Mulrey (Astro)

15:55 Behind the Firewall: Unseen Synergies in CTAO and SKAO - Victor Holanda (ETHZ/CSCS)

16:15 CTAO Off-site ICT - Andrii Neronov (EPFL)
Industry Contributions & Opportunities
Industry Contributions & Opportunities
15:35 - 17:05
Room: SW E11 (Aula)
Contributions

15:35 SKAO Procurement Update - Ryan Leadbetter

15:50 State-of-the-art Time & Frequency references for SKA-Low & SKA-Mid - Gilles CIBIEL (T4Science)

16:05 From raw material to the horn - Lukas Rohr (Mecha AG)

16:20 Scaling up the Central Signal Processor - Ivana Novak (Cosylab Switzerland)

16:35 Co-design for the SKA Science Data Processor - Hamza Chouh (EPFL)

16:50 Progress towards an industrial Rb two-photon clock tailored for scientific applications - Victor Helson (CSEM)
17:05

17:05 - 17:10
Room: SW E11 (Aula)

18:00 Welcome Reception
Welcome Reception
18:00 - 21:00
Tuesday, 26 August 2025

08:30 Arrival & Coffee
Arrival & Coffee
08:30 - 09:00
09:00 Opening Session (Day 2)
Opening Session (Day 2)
09:00 - 09:15
Room: SW E11 (Aula)
Contributions

09:00 A plenary overview of the parallel sessions - Emma Tolley (EPFL)
09:15 Dark & Quiet Skies
Dark & Quiet Skies
09:15 - 10:55
Room: SW 401
Contributions

09:15 Satellite Mega-constellations: The risks for the SKA and a Potential Solution with TABASCAL - Chris Finlay (EPFL)

09:35 Committee on Radio Astronomy Frequencies: an update on our ongoing work for protecting radio astronomy - Susanne Wampfler (Center for Space and Habitability, University of Bern)

09:55 The renewed IAU Centre for the Protection of Dark and Quiet Sky - Piero Benvenuti (International Astronomical Union CPS)

10:15 Satellite software tools for the community - Mike Peel (Imperial College London)

10:35 The importance of Dark and Quiet Skies in Swiss Astronomy and the Dialog with the Space Industry - Stephan Hellmich (EPFL)
Data Science & Imaging (Part 1)
Data Science & Imaging (Part 1)
09:15 - 10:35
Room: SW E11 (Aula)
Contributions

09:15 The R2D2 deep neural network series paradigm for radio-astronomical imaging - Ayoub Tajja (EPFL)

09:35 Classification of cluster radio emission with machine learning - Markus Bredberg (EPFL)

09:55 Radio Astronomy in the era of Large Models: Specialised Fine-tuning - Erica Lastufka (University of Geneva)

10:15 Complex-valued DDRM for Visibility inpainting - Michel Morales (EPFL)
10:55 Coffee Break
Coffee Break
10:55 - 11:25
11:25 SKACH Science Tools
SKACH Science Tools
11:25 - 11:45
Room: SW 401
Contributions

11:25 Karabo Community Poll - Chris Finlay (EPFL)
Data Science & Imaging (Part 2)
Data Science & Imaging (Part 2)
11:25 - 12:25
Room: SW E11 (Aula)
Contributions

11:25 Separating Point Source Contaminants at the Visibility Level - Shreyam Krishna (EPFL)

11:45 Galaxy Clusters on the Road to the SKA: Probing Diffuse Emission with Machine Learning - Swarna Chatterjee (Rhodes University)

12:05 Radio Astronomy in the era of Large Models: Can Vision-Language Models Generalize to Unseen Scientific Data? - Mariia Drozdova (University of Geneva) Vitaliy Kinakh (University of Geneva)
11:45 Precursor Science
Precursor Science
11:45 - 12:25
Room: SW 401
Contributions

11:45 The Hydrogen Intensity and Real-time Analysis eXperiment (HIRAX) - Overview and Status Update - Devin Crichton (ETH Zurich) Jennifer Studer (ETH Zurich)

12:05 Primary Beam Chromaticity in HIRAX: Characterization from Simulations and Power Spectrum Implications - Ajith Sampath (University of Geneva)
12:30 Lunch
Lunch
12:30 - 13:30
13:30 Karabo Workshop
Karabo Workshop
13:30 - 14:30
Room: SW E11 (Aula)
Contributions

13:30 Karabo Update and Tutorial: Radio Interferometry Simulations, Now Including RFI - Chris Finlay (EPFL)
14:30 VIRUP
VIRUP
14:30 - 14:55
Room: SW E11 (Aula)
Contributions

14:30 Updates on the VIRUP tool - Florian Cabot (EPFL)
14:55 CHSRC Workshop
CHSRC Workshop
14:55 - 15:55
Room: SW E11 (Aula)
Contributions

14:55 CHSRC workshop - Chin-Shin Chang (University of Geneva) Rohini Joshi (FHNW)
15:55 Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
15:55 - 16:00
Room: SW E11 (Aula)

16:00 Social Event - Visit of Technorama and Dinner
Social Event - Visit of Technorama and Dinner
16:00 - 21:30
Wednesday, 27 August 2025

08:30 Arrival & Coffee
Arrival & Coffee
08:30 - 09:00

09:00 Opening Session (Day 3)
Opening Session (Day 3)
09:00 - 09:05
Room: SW E11 (Aula)
09:05 Astro Science
Astro Science
09:05 - 10:35
Room: SW E11 (Aula)
Contributions

09:05 A Spin-Glass Formulation for Solar Magnetic Field Disambiguation - Brandon Panos (FHNW)

09:20 Extragalactic survey science in deep SKA multi-frequency continuum observations - Mark Sargent (EPFL LASTRO)

09:35 Stochastic Star Formation and Its Role in Shaping Cosmic Reionization - Michele Bianco (ETH Zurich)

09:50 Spectral studies of MERGHERS cluster sources - Keletso Dichaba (Rhodes University)

10:05 Gravitational lensing of FRBs: prospects for probing microlens populations in lensing galaxies - Prasenjit Saha (University of Zurich)

10:20 The Science Data Challenge 3b (Inference) results - Davide Piras (University of Geneva) Massimo De Santis (HES-SO)
10:35 Coffee Break
Coffee Break
10:35 - 11:05
11:05 Data Science & Simulations
Data Science & Simulations
11:05 - 12:20
Room: SW E11 (Aula)
Contributions

11:05 Fast Simulation of Cosmological Neutral Hydrogen based on the Halo Model - Pascal Hitz (ETH Zurich)

11:20 Investigating the Birth of Galactic Discs in the PHOEBOS Simulation - Daniel Swingler (UZH)

11:35 Connecting galaxy theory and observables using generative deep learning - Philipp Denzel (Centre for Artificial Intelligence, ZHAW)

11:50 Advancing cosmological simulations of fuzzy dark matter (FDM) with physics informed neural networks (PINNs) and generative modeling - Ashutosh Kumar Mishra (EPFL)

12:05 Tidal Disruption Events with SPH-EXA - Noah Kubli (Universität Zürich)
12:20

12:20 - 12:25
Room: SW E11 (Aula)

12:30 Lunch - End of conference
Lunch - End of conference
12:30 - 13:30