Celebrating our community: awards and honours

In this section we celebrate success and recognise colleagues, partners and members of the community who have received prestigious grants, awards and honours. Congratulations to all of them from the SKAO! If you’ve heard of a relevant award for a member of Team SKA, contact us at magazine@skao.int.

Prof. Naomi McClure-Griffiths (above), chair of the SKAO’s Science and Engineering Advisory Committee, and Prof. Matthew Bailes (below), a member of the SKAO’s Pulsars Science Working Group, were made fellows of the Australian Science Academy for their outstanding contributions to science.

Prof. Matthew Bailes

Dr Bernie Fanaroff, former managing director of SKA South Africa (now SARAO) has been elected into the membership of the prestigious American Philosophical Society. Election to the society honours extraordinary accomplishments in all fields.

Prof. Françoise Combes, co-chair of the SKAO’s Extragalactic Spectral Line Science Working Group, was awarded the 2022 Karl G. Jansky Lectureship by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory(NRAO),honouring her significant contributions to the fields of galaxy evolution, the interstellar medium, dark matter, and radio astronomy.

Dr Lourdes Verdes-Montenegro of the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalucia, a member the SKAO’s HI Galaxy Science Science Working Group, was awarded Spain’s Ada Byron prize which recognises the achievements of women in technology.

Dr John Ilee , a member of the UK SKA Science Committee and the SKAO’s Cradle of Life Science Working Group, has been awarded an STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellowship to work on ‘Unlocking the organic chemistry of planet formation’. He will develop models of proto-planetary disks, which will be used to interpret data from the SKA, JWST and ALMA.

Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker, co-chair of the SKAO’s Extragalactic Continuum Science Working Group, was awarded the Australian Astronomical Society’s Anne Green Prize for a significant advancement by a mid-career scientist.

And finally, the ASKAP telescope team – representing more than 100 engineers and researchers – received the Peter McGregor Prize 2022 for innovation in astronomical instrumentation.