The International Astronomical Union recently held its elections for members to lead the various scientific bodies organised as divisions and commissions. IDIA members Patrick Woudt, Lucia Marchetti and Carolina Odman were elected to the vice-presidence of Commission B4 “Radio Astronomy”, Division J “Galaxies and Cosmology” and Commission C2 “Communicating Astronomy to the Public”. We congratulate them on their election and … Read More
In an issue packed with retrospectives and news from UWC’s 60th Anniversary year in 2020, IDIA’s language project with the UWC Xhosa department to translate Astronomy resources into isiXhosa get an honourable mention. We also congratulate our Senior research Prof. Mario Santos for his NRF A-rating, a great achievement. Finally, there is also mention of our colleagues from Bioinformatics, and … Read More
For the first time in the institution’s history, the University of Pretoria (UP) held its annual Academic Achievers’ Awards virtually. By no means, however, was the significance of this prestigious event dampened by what Vice-Chancellor and Principal Professor Tawana Kupe deems to have been “extraordinary circumstances”. “We have been celebrating UP’s academic achievers for more than 20 years,” Prof Kupe … Read More
We are delighted to announce the appointment of Dr. Brad Frank in this position that will ensure that the research cloud is able to deliver on the needs of the astronomy research community, in particular for MeerKAT projects that are analysed on the ilifu facility. Dr. Frank first got involved with IDIA in 2016. Back then IDIA had just launched, … Read More
The InspiringFifty SA Awards aims to recognise and the increase the visibility of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) who have advanced the STEM fields. InspiringFifty celebrates the diversity of the Top 50 women in STEM in South Africa thus publicly positioning these successful women as role models for the next generation of female leaders in their fields, … Read More
An initiative by Dr. Ryan Daniels at the Forensic DNA laboratory in the Department of Biotechnology at the University of the Western Cape, this month-long workshop takes the participants from the basics of using Unix, the most common computer platform for science, to characterising ancestry with DNA data using cloud computing platforms and software containerisation. The diversity of topics of … Read More
We are excited to announce that we are once again joined by a new postdoctoral researcher, Dr. Sthabile Kolwa, who will be based at the University of Cape Town. Dr. Kolwa will be working on the MIGHTEE project on research into galaxy evolution. Dr. Kolwa joins us from the European Southern Observatory (ESO), in Germany. Dr. Kolwa joined the ESO … Read More
University of the Western Cape (UWC) veteran scholar, Associate Professor Carolina Ödman, has been shortlisted for this year’s prestigious National Science and Technology Forum-South32 (NSTF-South32) Awards, popularly known as the “Science Oscars of South Africa”. Prof Ödman is a finalist for the Communication Award for her pioneering work in astronomy outreach, development and education. The Communication Award recognises a communicator … Read More
This study was carried out by a team from the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO), the (US) National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), the University of Pretoria, and Rhodes University. The results will be published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Dr Kshitij Thorat, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pretoria and second author of the paper, explained: … Read More
Two academics from the University of the Western Cape (UWC) have been nominated for the 22nd prestigious National Science and Technology Forum-South32 (NSTF-South32) Awards, popularly known as “Science Oscars of South Africa”. International renowned academic Associate Professor Carolina Ödman has been nominated for the Communication Award for her pioneering work in astronomy outreach, development and education. The Communication Award recognises … Read More
