WEDNESDAY - 16 February 2022 at 12pm

Prof Claudia Maraston - University of Portsmouth - Galaxies

Title: Sitting on the dock of the Universe


This 11 February is the Day of Women and Girls in Science and the IAU is running a campaign for women in astronomy, supported by the RAS. You can find out more about the IAU's campaign for celebrating the Day of Women and Girls in Astronomy at their website.

We are celebrating our RAS women Fellow astronomers and space scientists who will give short talks on what inspires them about being a scientist. We are hosting 30-minute lunchtime chats every day of the week from 14-18 February. Join us at 12pm each day to hear all about their career path journey to astronomy and space science careers.


About the speaker:

I got my PhD in May 1998 at the University of Bologna (Italy), the Alma Mater and oldest university in the world. My office was in the medieval astronomical tower. My PhD supervisors were Professors Alvio Renzini and Laura Greggio. My thesis title was “Evolutionary population synthesis models”. I have been working in this field since then. Straight after my PhD I spent a few months as a visitor at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Garching (Munich, Germany) because my supervisors were in secondment there and at the Ludwig Maximillian University of Munich. In January 1999 I got my first 3 years post-doc contract in the extra-galactic group of Professor Ralf Bender at the Ludwig Maximillian University. In January 2001 I was offered another 3-years contract now at the Max-Planck Institute for extra-terrestrial Physics (MPE, Garching) where Ralf Bender was appointed director. In 2004 Professor Roger Davies from Oxford got in touch to propose a joint application for a Marie Curie fellowship with Oxford as a host institution. I was excited although that meant to leave a country where I happily stayed 6 years and built a professional life and a social life outside academia. But, I have always been attracted to the United Kingdom. My mum was a secondary school English teacher and she spent time in Oxford in the ‘60s to refine her English. As a child I pioneered porridge breakfast in Italy. Also, I’ve always loved the English language and music. To my delight I won a Marie Curie fellowship in 2004 and moved to Oxford, landing in the UK on February, 1st 2005 with my husband and our 3-months-old daughter. Nearly twenty years later I am still here.


Graphic credit: Gurjeet Kahlon, RAS Communications Officer

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