We were lucky to welcome a very wide audience for the the first instalment of this seminar series, designed for anyone using science and technology to engage communities and stimulate development. We had representatives from UWC’s Physics and Astronomy department, where it was hosted, as well as from the Humanities where long-term community engagement projects also take place. We welcomed … Read More
The Western Cape is host to many science engagement initiatives. From University community outreach to non-profits, private citizens and organisations engage with the public and use science and technology to stimulate development. While everyone is busy running those programmes, there is yet to be a forum for practitioners of science and technology engagement and development to come together and share … Read More
We created an Astronomy Careers resource in English, we now have it in Sesotho! Please help us translate it into all other South African languages. A form is ready for your input: https://forms.gle/mwits61FYLcvg3qx5 Any questions or comments, feel free to get in touch!
Since 2018, the group at the University of Pretoria is growing, and their science is growing! The technique of Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) enables radio antennas across the planet to be used as a single, Earth-sized telescope. At the same time, Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques are growing in importance as the data from telescopes grows bigger. Prof. Roger Deane … Read More
The Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy welcomes Dr. Matt Prescott, our new postdoctoral researcher, based at University of the Western Cape. Dr. Matt Prescott joins us under joint Fellowship between the Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy and the Centre for Radio Cosmology at theUniversity of the Western Cape. He shall be under the guidance of both Prof. Mario Santos and Prof. Russ Taylor. … Read More
The Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy through its partner institutions conducted outreach activities over the past three weeks. IDIA has engaged students at the University of Cape Town and the University of the Western Cape on the potential careers in for Astronomers in Big Data, Data Science and the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory. IDIA hosted an information table at … Read More
The Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy is pleased to announce visitors from the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF) in Catania, Italy. This cohort of researchers include Grazia Umana, Corrado Trigilio, Adriano Ingallinera and Francesco Cavallaro. The researchers will be visiting the University of Cape Town (Tuesday, 21 May 2019 and Thursday, 23 May 2019), University of the Western Cape (Wednesday, … Read More
Researchers from IDIA partner universities, especially junior researchers, were remarkably successful in gaining access to the MeerKAT telescope for new science projects. This means more opportunities for young scientists, more scientific discoveries, and lots of big data in need of powerful computing infrastructure in this age of mammoth scientific experiments. How do astronomers get to use telescopes? It is a … Read More
IDIA welcomes Dharam Lal, a visiting scholar. Prof. Dharam is an Associate Professor at the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research – National Centre for Radio Astrophysics in Pune, India. He is the Indian project leader for South Africa- India superMIGHTEE collaboration to extend the MIGHTEE project to lower frequencies by combining MeerKAT and the upgraded GMRT observations. Prof. Dharam’s research … Read More
Could you be an Astronomer? That is a question we would like to ask all young aspiring scientists. To help them answer, IDIA has prepared a resource that gives some ideas of what it means to be an astronomer. With input from astronomy graduate students from across the country, a picture emerges of a fun discipline that can be learnt … Read More
