One of our postgraduate researchers, Simon Murphy, has been offered a prestigious grant to work at the University of Porto, Portugal, for three months later this year. The project aims to develop upon the existing models for delta Scuti stars, on which there is great expertise at the Centro de Astrofísica. For the last 18 months, Simon has been using Kepler data to observe delta Scuti stars with more precision than ever before, and is thus well placed to compliment the stellar models with some observational founding. The Centro de Astrofísica awards just one three-month grant per academic year, and it reflects the JHI well that it was awarded to one of our students.