Do more
Go Outside
Moon Diary
Counting Stars
The easiest and simplest way to get involved is to go outside and look up! If you live in the countryside and you have a dark sky - great! If you live in a city or well populated area, you might find you can’t see that many stars.
Teresa Anderson
Credit: Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre,
The University of Manchester
Occupation: Director of Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre
Year born: 1962
Research Areas: Electrical Engineering, Renewable Energy, Public Engagement
Anu Ohja
Early Life
Anu grew up in the 1970's and was captivated by the early crewed missions to space. As a teenager he saved his pocket money and cash from his paper round to buy a telescope. His memory of seeing Saturn's rings for the first time still makes him feel emotional. Anu didn't know what he wanted to be when he grew up, but knew he wanted to keep on learning.
Research Areas: Education, Skills, Human Spaceflight, Exploration Science
"Space is a topic that captures the imagination, and I use it as a vehicle to deliver education."
Tana Joseph
Credit: Willie Runte. All rights reserved.
Used by permission.
Occupation: Astronomer and Science Communicator
Year born: 1984
Research Areas: Extragalactic X-ray Binaries, Radio Astronomy
"Science isn’t done until it is communicated."
Samuel Okoye
Credit: AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives,
John Irwin Slide Collection
Low res image used with permission
Occupation: Astrophysicist
Year born: 1939
Wanda Díaz-Merced
Credit: IAU/M. Zamani
Occupation: Astronomer
Research Areas: Sonification, Black Holes
Carlos Frenk
Early Life
Carlos was born in Mexico. He is the son of a German-Jewish immigrant father and a Mexican-Spanish mother. Half of Carlos’ family are musicians, the other half are doctors. Carlos was interested in maths and nature when he was young. He did not feel that music or medicine would suit him. Carlos has an undergraduate degree in physics from the University of Mexico. He started off studying engineering. He switched to physics when he realised that he was more interested in “why things work?” than “how?”.
Year born: 1951
Research Areas: Supercomputer Simulations, Galaxy Formation
"Scientists are sceptics. But the main thing is you have to be a rebel, because otherwise you don’t contribute to new ideas."
Anna Scaife
Early Life
Anna grew up in Cheshire, UK. She has an undergraduate masters’ degree in Physics from the University of Bristol. Anna studied for a PhD in astrophysics at the University of Cambridge. There, she got hooked on astronomy. This was the first time she had the chance to work with a radio telescope.
Research Areas: Radio-Astronomy, Artificial Intelligence
"There are very few projects in science generally, not just in astrophysics, that have data sizes like the SKA [(Square Kilometre Array)]."
Alan Turing
Early Life
Alan was born in London, UK. From a young age he was interested in codes and ciphers and spent lots of time creating and solving puzzles. He studied mathematics at the University of Cambridge and got a PhD in mathematical logic from Princeton University.
Year born: 1912
Research Areas: Computer Programming, Artificial Intelligence
"May not machines carry out something which ought to be described as thinking but which is very different from what a man does?"
Masatoshi Koshiba
Credit: 首相官邸ホームページ
Occupation: Astrophysicist
Year born: 1926
Research Areas: Neutrinos, Detectors, Particle Physics, Cosmic Rays