My name is Rodolfo Smiljanic.
I am an associate professor at the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences, in Warsaw, Poland. I am an expert on the determination of chemical abundances from high-resolution spectra of late-type stars. My research interests include stellar evolution, Galactic stellar populations, large spectroscopic surveys, stellar nucleosynthesis, and the chemical composition of planet-host stars.
My research group is called the SAGA Team. Click below to learn more about our projects.
The Cassegrain U-Band Efficient Spectrograph (CUBES) is a new near-UV low- (R ~ 6 000) and medium-resolution (R ∼ 20 000) spectrograph being built for the 8-m VLT and expected to be installed in 2029. I am the Polish national co-PI in the consortium (which counts also with partners in Italy, Brazil, Germany, the UK, and Slovenia).
The Wide-field Spectroscopic Telescope (WST) will be a 12-m telescope for multi-object spectroscopy. It will have a large field-of-view (3.1 deg2) and high multiplex (>30 000), with both medium and high resolution modes and a large integral field unit. I am part of the steering committee and co-leader of the Galactic science working group.
Gaia is a scientific spacecraft launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) that is making a three-dimensional map of the Milky Way, by measuring the position and motion of more than a billion stars. Since November 2022, I am member of the the Gaia Science Team (GST), a committee that advises ESA, through the Gaia Project Scientist (Dr Johannes Sahlmann), on all top-level science performance, science policy and science organization aspects of the Gaia mission.
The High-Resolution Multi-Object Spectrograph (HRMOS) is a new instrument planned for the 8-m VLT. It will combine high-resolution (R ~ 80k) with multiplex between 50 in a FoV of 25 arcmin of diameter. I am member of the core science team that is developing the science case for HRMOS (since June 2020).
The 4-metre Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope (4MOST) is a wide-field, high-multiplex, fibre-fed, optical spectroscopic survey facility mounted on ESO's 4-metre telescope VISTA at the Paranal Observatory. I represent CAMK at the Polish Consortium that is a partner of the 4MOST consortium (since June 2026). The participation was made possible by funding from the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education (MNiSW grant 2026/WK/06).
HRMOS is a very high spectral resolution (80k) multi-object (50-60) spectrograph that will be proposed as a next generation instrument for the VLT. The white paper presents the scientific rationale HRMOS and the instrument concept.
The current status of WST was presented at the SPIE "Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes XI" conference, 5-10 July 2026, and the proceedings paper is available for reading.
Members of the SAGA Team took part, in-person and on-line, in the Annual Meeting of the European Astronomical Society between June 29 and July 3 in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The 4MOST Polish Consortium obtained funding from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education to join the 4MOST project as a partner.
The event "WST Busy Week" took place in Assois, France, between 22-26 of June and brought together the science and technical teams working on the conceptual design of WST.
The DAINA project "History of CNO in the Milky Way" was presented in the "Exploring the Evolution of CNOPS Elements from Earth and Space" conference, 2-6 February, 2026.
Final Gaia-ESO catalogue of astrophysical parameters (DR5.1). Published on 07 Jul 2023 at the ESO data archive. A total of 114,916 stars encompassing all major components of the Milky Way.
Across the Universe is a book that presents our Institute (CAMK/PAN), its history, facilities, research groups and collaborations. Look for info of our group under "The Gaia-ESO Survey (and beyond)".
In June 2020, a short interview about CUBES was published at the news portal of the Polish Academy of Sciences (apparently no longer available) and reproduced in a few different places.
"Research should be conducted with honesty and integrity" and "All professional interactions should be conducted with consideration and respect". Between 2016-2018, I was part of the working group that elaborated the Ethics Statement and Guidelines for Good Practice of the European Astronomical Society.
COIN is a working group within the International Astrostatistics Association (IAA), that aims to foster the collaboration between astronomers, cosmologists, statisticians and machine learning experts.
The Working Group on Stellar Spectral Libraries was established within commission G5 of the IAU. The WG was tasked with carrying-on an inventory of the different attempts made to explain the discrepancies among different libraries, and summarize recommendations for actions that would improve the situation.
If you are interested in our work, feel free to get in touch.