EuCAPT

I was the founding director of the the European Consortium for Astroparticle Theory (EuCAPT), that brings together more than 130 European institutions and almost 2000 researchers active in theoretical astroparticle physics and cosmology. Our goals are: to increase the exchange of ideas and knowledge; to coordinate scientific and training activities; to help scientists attract adequate resources for their projects; to promote a stimulating, fair and open environment in which young scientists can thrive.

GRAPPA

I was the founding spokesperson of GRAPPA , the Center of excellence for Gravitation and Astroparticle Physics at the University of Amsterdam. Today, GRAPPA hosts ten core faculty members – S. Ando, D. Baumann, G. Bertone, M.P. Decowski, B. Freivogel, S. Markoff, P. Moesta, S. Nissanke, J. Vink and C. Weniger – as well as many associated scientists from the Institute for High Energy Physics (IHEF), the Anton Pannekoek Institute (API) and the Institute for Theoretical Physics (ITFA).

TeV Particle Astrophysics

In 2019 I created, together with a team of international colleagues, the conference series TeV Particle Astrophysics (aka TeVPA), for which I acted as founding chair of the organizing committee until 2019. TeVPA is an international conference that provides the stage for the most recent advances in the booming field of Astroparticle Physics. The first edition of the conference took place at Fermilab, Chicago IL in 2005. Since then, it has been held every year at different institutions and conference centers around the world.

Cosmos Prize

In 2018, I launched the Cosmos Prize, a new initiative for the promotion of scientific culture. Every year two prizes are awarded for the best scientific popular science work in the fields of Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics: The “Cosmos Prize” is awarded by a scientific committee, while the “Students Prize” is an assembly of high school students. The initiative engages thousands of high-school students in  Italy, the Netherlands, and France and Spain.

Dark Machines

I was a founding member of Dark Machines, a research collective of physicists and data scientists aimed at answering cutting edge questions about Dark Matter with advanced data science techniques.