Pongo © ESO

In June 10-14, 2024, the first ever European ALMA School took place at The University of Manchester, UK. Organised by the European ARC Network, this event offered extensive training on various aspects of ALMA.

The majority (66%) of the 50 participants, in various career stages ranging from graduate students to faculty astronomers, had no previous experience with interferometry. The school achieved a close-to-equal gender balance with 44% female participants and included participants from the UK, Italy, Spain, Germany, Norway and Kazakhstan.

Lecturers from the ESO ARC and the European ARC nodes covered topics including the basics of interferometry, ALMA calibration, interferometric imaging and self-calibration, archive mining, proposal preparation, as well as the upcoming Wide Band Sensitivity Upgrade to ALMA. Invited talks on ALMA science as well as on the Very Large Telescope Interferometer, were 
offered as part of the programme.

During the school, a trip to Jodrell Bank Observatory was organized, where the participants had a guided tour of the observatory and e-MERLIN correlator. Feedback given by the participants after the end of the school indicated that it was well received and participants found the lectures beneficial to their research.

All talks and links to tutorial materials are available on the meeting webpage: https://sites.google.com/view/eu-alma-school-2024/home