IDIA Visualization Postdoctoral Fellowship

Supervisors: Assoc. Prof. Michelle Kuttel and Prof. Rob Simmonds Next generation radio astronomy facilities such as the MeerKAT and Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescopes, and other SKA pathfinder telescopes are embarking on key science projects that will create very large data sets, intractable with traditional means. The new data sets will be unprecedented in size and complexity. Moreover, the scientific … Read More

Earth by NASA

Italy-South Africa Radio Astronomy workshop

Both Italy and South Africa have a strong interest in radio astronomy, and invest into the field accordingly. IDIA is a co-organiser of a special workshop on Italy-South Africa Radio Astronomy held on 24-25 October 2018 at the South African National Research Foundation (NRF). This workshop will cover both scientific topics and broader areas related to the investment into a … Read More

IDIA is getting a new website

We are building a new website for the Institute. While we are doing so, information on this website will be incomplete. Is there something you cannot find? Get in touch! Email us at communications@idia.ac.za. You can also reach us on our twitter account @Big_IDIA. Thank you for your patience. In the meantime, here are existing websites on the IDIA domain: MIGHTEE: … Read More

Warm send-off for Prof. Ishwara Chandra

IDIA was privileged to have Associate Professor Ishwara Chandra from the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) in Pune, India as a sabbatical visitor for one year. In a warm send-off the the UCT Astronomy department on September 20, Prof. Russ Taylor mentioned how Prof. Chandra’s research contributed to the group’s deep imaging efforts, and thanked Prof. Chandra for his many … Read More

IDIA partners with the SARAO Big Data Africa school.

The week of 10 – 17 September 2018 sees the 2nd Big Data Africa school take place near Cape Town. Organised by SARAO as part of the Newton Fund‘s DARA Big Data project, the school brings 27 students from 8 African countries together with lecturers, local and international, to take part in an intense, hands-in academic school where they get first … Read More

Assoc. Pof. Michelle Kuttel

Michelle Kuttel is an associate professor at the UCT Department of Computer Science. Her cross-disciplinary research is in the area of Computational Science; primarily in the areas of Computational Astronomy (development of research software and computational approaches to support research in Astronomy) and Computational Chemistry (specifically computational glycochemistry, with a current focus on modelling of vaccines). She uses a combination … Read More

Dr. Sarah Blyth

Dr. Sarah Blyth is a senior lecturer at the UCT Department of Astronomy. She is Deputy Head of Department: Astronomy (undergraduate matters) and Co-director: National Astrophysics and Space Science Program (NASSP) She is one of the Principal Investigators of the LADUMA survey which studies gas in galaxies back to when the universe was one third of its current age. This project involves … Read More

MeerKAT Science book published

The proceedings of a scientific workshop focusing on the science to be carried out with the MeerKAT telescope have been published into a book. The opus, entitled,”MeerKAT Science: On the Pathway to the SKA” is available through IDIA. In 2016, the Principal Investigators of the MeerKAT Large Survey Projects who have been awarded the lion’s share of the telescope’s first … Read More