Alumnus - Barbara Pedroni

Name: Barbara Pedroni
Alumnus: Master Applied Physics

“TU Delft is a great place to be, with a very diverse and vibrant environment. Professors and PhD students are happy to share their knowledge and encourage ideas to be exchanged.”

Hi, I’m Barbara Pedroni from Italy. I started my Master’s Degree in Applied Physics in 2022 and I’m currently focusing on the Physics for Instrumentation track. Outside of academics, I really enjoy theatre, sports and reading. I've always been fascinated by physics, from the tiniest things in quantum physics to the endless possibilities of imaging and optics. The programme lets you take courses from different tracks, which helped me figure out what I'm good at. Over the years, I've developed a real interest in optical technologies, especially for space research. That's why I decided to do my Master's Thesis with the Space Optics group. I also joined the Honors Program, which is giving me a solid grounding in observational cosmology. I’m taking courses from an external university and doing an extracurricular research project. TU Delft is a great place to be, with a very diverse and vibrant environment. Professors and PhD students are happy to share their knowledge and encourage ideas to be exchanged. When I needed help with choosing courses or understanding their content, the program coordinators and teachers were always there to help. What I'm really enjoying about doing my Master's Thesis is having the chance to lead a project from start to finish. I've been able to develop some of my ideas after discussing them with my supervisors, do the modelling and simulations, and finally perform measurements on what I designed. It's a very personal and fulfilling project, and it's great to face the challenges of every step along the way. The outcome is definitely worth the effort! What really gets me going is the end goal of the research. It's pretty amazing how building instruments on a small scale helps us understand things that are light years away from us. That’s why in my future I would love to exploit the knowledge I am gaining to develop technologies for space observation.