Curriculum vitae

My name is Rostislav (Rosta) Stork. I was born on October 28, 1969 in Trebic (town placed on the Czech-Moravian Highland (49 15 northern latitude, 15 52 eastern longitude), 40000 citizens).

I finished a High School in 1988 and I passed an entrance examination to Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics. After two years of studying of general mathematics and physics I chose astronomy and astrophysics as my specialization. The topic of my Master's thesis was "Comparison of Chemical Composition of Cometary Dust and Meteors".

The principal part of my MSc. work was an analysis of data obtained by mass spectrometer PUMA 1 (working on board of Vega 1, the space probe to comet Halley). The thesis consisted of two parts. In the first part I selected 388 mass spectrograms of small dust particles (unambiguous spectra) and identified their elemental composition. The next step was to test the hypothesis whether large particles were aggregates of smaller grains like in Interplanetary Dust Particles (IDP's are both of analogical mass scale and origin). The most important result was finding that this is correct only in several cases. The abundance of organic elements (C, N, O) is greater in small dust particles and the abundance of mineral elements (Fe, Si, Mg) is greater in larger ones. In the second part of the thesis, the resulting chemical composition of Halley's dust particles was compared with the composition found from optical spectra of Orionid meteor shower, taken and recorded in 1992 by a TV equipment of the Ondrejov Observatory. This first attempt confirmed that such a comparison was possible and could be continued with more spectroscopic observations.

I took a MSc. degree in July 1993.

In the same year I passed an entrance examination to postgraduate studies and I continued studies of astronomy at the same university. The topic of my PhD thesis was "Infrared and Visual Observations of Solid State Interplanetary Matter". The thesis consists of two parts - TV meteor spectroscopy and statistical studies of faint meteors and other part based on ISO (Infrared Space Observatory - ESA satellite, launched on November 17, 1995) infrared spectroscopy of comets. I defended thesis on November 30, 1998.

I reach a Ph.D. degree in 1999.

During academic years 1993-1994 and 1995-1996 I worked as a teaching assistant of basic astronomy at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University.

I was successful in a competition of a temporary position at the Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, and since September 1994 I have been working at the Department of Interplanetary Matter in a part-time job and since 1996 in the full time job.

In July 1994 I participated in Summer Graduate School on Meteoritics and Planetology at Roztez and in 57th Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society in Prague (contributed paper M. Solc, R. Stork and M. Kozel: Impacts of asteroidal material on cometary nuclei).

In July 1996 I participated in ACM 96 (Asteroids, comets, meteors) in Versailles (contributed paper R. Stork and M. Solc: Space resolved model of dust coma for absolute photometry by ISOPHOT) and in 59th Annual Meteoritical Society Meeting in Berlin (contributed paper R. Stork and M. Solc: Models of dust temperatures in atmospheres of ISO targets comets).

In July 1998 we presented papers (Stork R., Borovicka J., Bocek J., and Solc M.: Peculiar Features of alpha Monocerotid television spectra and Solc M. and Stork R.: Loosely bound matter on the surface of small bodies: models of its motion) on 61th Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society in Dublin.

In August 1998 I participated on the conference Meteoroids 1998 in Tatranska Lomnica (contributed papers Stork R., Borovicka J., Bocek J., and Solc M.: TV spectra of shower meteors and Bukovanska M., Nemec I., Solc. M, and Stork R.: FTIR microspectroscopy of some achondrites and chondrites)

In September 1998 I presented paper (Stork R., Borovicka J., Bocek J., and Solc M.: alpha Monocerotid TV spectra) on JENAM 98 in Prague. I was also webmaster of that conference.

In 1999 the paper from Meteoroids 1998 were accepted and published in the proceedings.

I am a member of the Czech Astronomical Society since 1987.

My hobbies are music, sci-fi, chess.


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