My winning proposal: Accelerating astronomy

Making a strategic case for strengthening Australia’s astronomy community led to a successful ARC bid

Australian astronomy is in an exciting place. Work is soon to begin on building the Square Kilometre Array, the world’s largest radio telescope, in both Australia and South Africa. In the meantime, via a 10-year strategic partnership with the European Southern Observatory, Australian astronomers have access to the Very Large Telescope in Chile.

Claudia Lagos is a senior research fellow at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research based at the University of Western Australia. She moved to Australia after working at the ESO, and recently won a $645,000 Discovery Project grant from the Australian Research Council (ARC) for a project using observations from the Very Large Telescope.