3 December 2013

Abril Combetto, the Gold Medal winner of the Fifth Astronomy Olympiad, visited the headquarters of INVAP (Applied Research Company) accompanied by her mother Cecilia Cirill, on Tuesday December 3. The young student was welcomed by Lic. Ricardo Sagarzazu and Dr. Pablo Tognetti to make a tour of INVAP’s facilities.

Being just 15 years old, the student of New Horizons School (Escuela Nuevos Horizontes, in Spanish) from the town of El Bolsón won the Gold Medal at the V Latin American Olympiad on Astronomy and Astronautics held in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

By means of the National and Provincial Program for the Popularization of Science, the Under Secretary’s Office of Science, Technology and Development for Production, dependent on the Ministry of Economy of the Province of Río Negro, encouraged Abril’s participation to represent Argentina at the Olympiad carried out in mid-November. She is a member of Osiris Astronomical Group (Grupo Astronómico Osiris, in Spanish). Her papers, by which she was selected, are concerned with the hydraulic rockets launch and the astronomical observation. After the tour of the company’s headquarters, Abril was really impressed and said she would like to pursue a career related to engineering or physics.

The Latin American Olympiad on Astronomy and Astronautics is an annual astronomical and astronautical competition for high-school students. Its main objectives are to promote the scientific exchange and to bring science education research, particularly astronomy, closer to students.

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Diario Río Negro