Celebrating our community

In this section we celebrate success and recognise colleagues, partners and members of the community who have received prestigious grants, awards and honours in recent months.

Dr Catherine Cesarsky, who completed her term as Chair of the SKAO Council at the beginning of February, was awarded the Grand Cross in the French national order of merit, the highest rank within the order.

Dr Rob Adam, former managing director of SKAO’s partner organisation SARAO, was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg for his exceptional contribution to advancing science, technology and innovation.

Prof. Françoise Combes, former chair of the Extragalactic Spectral Line Science Working Group, has been elected President of the French Academy of Sciences for the period 2025-2026.

The SKAO pavilion at the IAU General Assembly 2024, created in collaboration with Cape Town-based company HOTT3D, won the coveted Best of the Year award at the Exhibition and Event Association of Southern Africa (EXSA).

Dr Renu Sharma, COO and Director of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, has been inducted into the Women’s Hall of Fame in Western Australia.

Dr Steve Cunnington (University of Manchester), a member of the SKAO’s Cosmology Science Working Group, received the UK’s Royal Astronomical Society Early Career Award, which is given to individuals whose career has shown the most promising development within five years of completing their PhD.

The Royal Astronomical Society granted the Group Achievement Award to the European Pulsar Timing Array, who recently published their second data release with high-precision timing data from 25 ultra-stable millisecond pulsars.