ECDN Rep for the School of Physics and Astronomy 
What is your academic background and your current research field?
I am currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Sun, Stars and Exoplanet group in the School of Physics and Astronomy. My research focuses on studying structures of stars in our Milky Way and learn what the stars can tell us about our Galaxy's chaotic past. Before taking up my current role, I was a postdoc at Universitá di Bologna, Italy, and originally I pursued my PhD at the Stellar Astrophysics Centre at Aarhus University in Denmark.
What is your role as an ECDN Rep and how can postdocs in your school contact you?
As one of the ECDN representative in the School of Physics and Astronomy, I am eager to promote activities that interest early career researchers at the school and to create opportunities to strengthen the connections among early career researchers across the research groups at the school. I also hope to take questions, suggestions and challenges from the ERC's at the school and bring them up so we can address them collaboratively and shape our university together.
If you have a question, concern, or just want a friendly chat, feel free to reach out to me via email (a.l.stokholm@bham.ac.uk) or find me on the ground floor of Physics West. I am always happy to meet up over a coffee.
What do you feel are the benefits of the ECDN programme for postdocs?
ECDN offers a significant support to career development and skills training. It is a wonderful platform to learn from fellow researchers, to create new networks of peer scientists, and to exchange ideas for collective development.
What do you feel have been the benefits to you from being a postdoc rep?
Being involved in ECDN as a member and a representative I want to further develop my own professional skills as I consider this an essential aspect of being an early career researcher.
I am eager to learn from others' experiences and to share my own. Mu goal is to make the postdoc experience at the school as possitive as possible, and I believe we all can benefit from open conversations. I know what it is like to be a rather isolated postdoc in a foreign country so I want to ensure that those in similar situations a good and positive experience here at the University of Birmingham.