In early May 2026 we received the visits of our collaborators Nico Sanchis Gual, Isa Cordero, Gabriele Palloni, Claudio Lazarte (Valencia, Spain), members of the NewFunFiCO network, as well as Carolina Benone (UFPA, Brazil) and Carlos Joaquin (UNAM, Mexico), who joined us to celebrate the successful Ph.D. exam of Etevaldo Costa.
Etevaldo Costa successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis with title "Bosonic exotic compact objects: construction and physical properties". The thesis was supervised by C. Herdeiro and E. Radu and the committee included Eric Gourgoulhon, Daniela Doneva and Carolina Benone as examiners. Congratulations Etevaldo!
In April 2026 we received the visits of Maryem Jemri (Rabat) and Justin Feng (Prague). Thank you for your seminars and the great scientific interactions!
Geometric Cosmology—and in particular Geometric Inflation (GI)—provides a higher-curvature mechanism capable of producing an accelerated expansion in the early Universe without invoking an inflaton in its minimal realization.
Gr@v is hosting the visits of Yasha Shnir, long time group collaborator, under an FCT mobility grant, and Mario Luciano Navarro, Ph.D. student from Valencia in the spring 2026. In the photo Yasha and Mario enjoy a bit of sunshine after the weekly group lunch.
Our group is co-organizing the X Amazonian Workshop on Gravity and Analogue Models from 29 June to 3 July in Belém, Brazil. More info here.
The NewFunFiCO network is organizing a workshop in Frankfurt from 15-17 June 2026. More info here.
Oleg Tsupko, an expert in several strong gravity topics including lensing and black hole shadows, joins Gr@v as a CEEC researcher from April 2026. Welcome Oleg!
The Gr@v coordinator, C. Herdeiro, visited Prague to deliver two seminars, at CEICO and Charles University. The visit provided a great opportunity to reconnect with friends and colleagues in a city rich in scientific and cultural heritage - home to figures such as Kepler, Tycho Brahe, Einstein, Doppler, Mach, Bolzano, and Kafka. Many thanks to both groups for their kind hospitality and for making this visit possible.
In January-February we received the visits of Andrea Maselli (Grand Sasso, Italy), Gabriel Ribeiro (UFPA, Brazil) and Juan José Vázquez (INAOE, Mexico). Knowledge transfer in action!