International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics

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

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]

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.

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.^[2]

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[a]	2020	Estonia[b]	N/A	CAN Zhening Li	40	GeCAA
14	2021	Colombia	Bogotá	RUS Maksim Permiakov	48	IOAA 2021
15	2022	Ukraine	Kyiv	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.

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[]