EPEC Profiles – Ines Belgacem
In this series from the EPEC Communication Working Group, we meet members of the Europlanet Early Career (EPEC) community and find out more about their experiences and aspirations.
Ines is currently a research fellow at the European Space Agency in Madrid, Spain. She studies the icy surfaces of our solar system and, more particularly, Jupiter’s icy moons in preparation for ESA’s JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) mission. Her main focus is looking at photometric data – i.e. how the light is reflected off of a surface w.r.t. the geometry of observation and illumination. This is directly linked to the surface microtexture (roughness, shape of particles, etc.) and can help us learn more about the evolution of a planetary body and the processes at play.
She graduated with her PhD in November 2019 from the Université of Paris Saclay in France for which she was awarded the Amelia Earhart fellowship (Zonta international) in 2018. She completed the first part of her studies at ISAE-SUPAERO and Université Paul Sabatier in Toulouse, France in engineering and astrophysics.
Ines is also very invested in outreach activities. She loves sharing her passion with the general public and especially getting kids engaged in space science and astrophysics. Recently, she co-created with fellow scientists he Sens’Astro association with the aim to share content to discover space through the 5 senses. Not only is it an original way of looking at astrophysics but the main objective is to make the wonders of space accessible to people with sensory disabilities.
Born and raised in Toulouse, France, she maintains strong ties to her hometown with her outreach and advocacy engagements. She is one of the ambassadors of the OSE l’ISAE-SUPAERO program of the ISAE-SUPAERO foundation aimed at promoting access to higher studies to children from rural and underserved areas. Diversity and representation are subjects very close to her heart.
She has joined the Europlanet society and EPEC in 2019 as an Early Career Officer for the French hub and has since been very involved in the EPEC committee as well as the communications working group. She is part of the newly formed team managing the social media accounts of EPEC.
EPEC has been a great way to meet young planetary scientists from all over Europe that I would have never crossed paths with. I made new friends and I’m happy to keep building the network and its activities together.
INES BELGACEM
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