The 13th IRAM Millimeter Interferometry School took place from September 28 to October 3, 2026 in Grenoble, France. Over the course of the week, 53 researchers from 12 countries participated, 15% of them from outside the European Union, reflecting the school’s international reach. The participants included 41 PhD students (77%), 5 postdoctoral researchers (9%), and 7 others (13%), among them few Master’s students and IRAM personnel, which highlights the school’s primary role in training early-career astronomers.
The program was designed to provide a solid foundation in interferometric techniques, an understanding of the NOEMA interferometer, and an overview of its ongoing and future developments. IRAM astronomers, with contributions from a few external astronomers, delivered a series of lectures and hands-on training sessions. The lectures were intended to train researchers who plan to work with NOEMA or other millimeter interferometers, and to prepare them to process and interpret interferometric data effectively. In the hands-on sessions, participants experimented with several image synthesis techniques. Dedicated sessions were also devoted to proposal preparation. Participants, grouped by scientific interest, worked with a tutor to refine their observing proposals, ensuring that their scientific goals were translated into technically sound observations. These sessions encouraged productive discussions and knowledge exchange between early-career researchers and IRAM astronomers.
On the last day, participants visited the NOEMA observatory. The visit offered a chance to see the interferometer up close, to better understand how it operates, and to talk with the observatory staff, who shared their experience and insights into the technical and operational aspects of the facility.
Further information about the school is available at the event webpage.
Image Credit: IRAM