International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics

The International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA) is an annual astronomy and astrophysics competition for high school students. It is one of the international science olympiads.[1]

IOAA 2012 at Rio Planetarium, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The Olympiad was founded from a dissidence inside the International Astronomy Olympiad, in order to increase the scope of the organization.

The first IOAA was held in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in November/December 2007. The subsequent annual meetings were held in Indonesia (2008), Iran (2009), China (2010), Poland (2011), Brazil (2012), Greece (2013), Romania (2014), Indonesia (2015), India (2016), Thailand (2017) and China (2018).[2] The 13th IOAA was held in Keszthely & Heviz, Hungary.[3]

History

The first Olympiad was held in the city of Chiang Mai (Thailand) from November 30 to December 9, 2007. The International Council, consisting of team leaders, elected a president (Dr. Boonrucksar Soonthornthum, Thailand) and a secretary general (Dr. Chatief Kunjaya, Indonesia) for a five-year term.

The second Olympiad was held in 2008, from August 19 to 28, in the city of Bandung (Indonesia). It was attended by representatives of 22 countries.

The third Olympiad was held in 2009, from October 17 to 27, in Tehran. An observation tour was conducted in the desert. Representatives of 20 countries took part in the Olympiad.

The fourth Olympiad was held in 2010, from September 12 to September 21, in Beijing. 114 participants of the Olympiad came from 23 countries.

The fifth Olympiad was held in 2011, from August 25 to September 4, in the Polish cities of Katowice, Chorzow and Krakow. For the first time the Olympiad was held in Europe. Representatives of 26 countries took part in the Olympiad. In Poland, the International Council elected a new president (Dr. Chatief Kunjaya, Indonesia) and a secretary general (Dr. Greg Stachowski, Poland). Regional coordinators were also elected (Dr. Thaís Mothé Diniz, Brazil, for America and Dr. Aniket Sule, India, for Asia).

The sixth Olympiad was held in 2012, from August 4 to 13. For the first time the Olympiad was held in America in the Brazilian cities of Rio de Janeiro and Vasoras. Representatives of 28 countries took part in the Olympiad.

The seventh Olympiad was held in 2013, from July 27 to August 4 in the Greek city of Volos. The competition was attended by 39 teams from 35 countries, including for the first time teams from the USA, New Zealand, Canada, Malaysia, Armenia, the Republic of Macedonia and Cyprus.

The fourteenth Olympiad was supposed to be held in Bogota, Colombia. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the competition was moved to an online format and Colombia was moved to 2021. This competition was not named IOAA, but GeCAA (meaning Global e-Competition on Astronomy and Astrophysics) and did not count as the 14th IOAA. It was held 23rd September 2020 to 23rd October 2020. Estonia was the host country.

Summary

Number Year Host country Host city Absolute winner Countries Represented Website
1 2007  Thailand Chiang Mai  THA Suwun Suwunnarat 21
2 2008  Indonesia Bandung  IND Nitin Jain 22
3 2009  Iran Tehran  IND Nitin Jain 20
4 2010  China Beijing  POL Przemysław Mróz 23
5 2011  Poland Chorzów / Katowice / Krakow  CZE Stanislav Fort 26 IOAA 2011
6 2012  Brazil Rio de Janeiro / Vassouras  LTU Motiejus Valiūnas 28 IOAA 2012
7 2013  Greece Volos  ROM Denis Turcu 35
8 2014  Romania Suceava / Gura Humorului  ROM Denis Turcu 42
9 2015  Indonesia Magelang / Semarang  INA Joandy Leonata Pratama 41
10 2016  India Bhubaneswar  IND Ameya Patwardhan 42 IOAA 2016
11 2017  Thailand Phuket  SLO Aleksej Jurca 44 IOAA 2017
12 2018  China Beijing  RUS Stanislav Tsapaev 39 IOAA 2018
13 2019  Hungary Keszthely & Heviz  VIE Nguyễn Mạnh Quân 46 IOAA 2019
n/a 2020 Estonia n/a CAN Zhening Li 40 https://gecaa.ee/
14 2021  Colombia Bogotá IOAA 2020
15 2022  Ukraine TBD TBD
16 2023  Russia St. Petersburg TBD
17 2024  Kazakhstan TBD TBD
18 2025  Belarus Minsk TBD

Prizewinners

High-scoring participants

The following table lists multiple (triple and more) gold medal winners of IOAA with their ranks and corresponding years.

Name Team(s) Years
Denis Turcu Romania 2013 (1st) 2014 (1st)
Stanislav Fort Czech Republic 2010 (8th) 2011 (1st) 2012 (2nd)
Peter Kosec Slovakia 2010 (5th) 2011 (4th) 2012 (5th)
Daniil Dolgov Russia 2016 (8th) 2017 (3rd) 2018 (11th)
Jindřich Jelínek Czech Republic 2016 (9th) 2018 (5th) 2019 (7th)

Note: Several countries (e.g. India, Indonesia, Iran, Thailand) do not allow their students to contest in IOAA more than two times, even if they are eligible. Thus, statistics from those countries is not included in the table above.

References

  1. "About IOAA". www.ioaastrophysics.org.
  2. "History". www.ioaastrophysics.org.
  3. "List of Future Events". www.ioaastrophysics.org.
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