Author Archives: Ram Venugopal

IAU General Assembly 2015 – Focus Meeting 20

FM 20: Astronomy for Development The OAD coordinated a Focus Meeting (FM20) at the 2015 IAU General Assembly titled “Astronomy for Development.” The meeting took place on 13-14 August 2015. Please visit www.astronomy2015.org for more information. Overview This Focus Meeting was about the global developmental impact that all aspects related to astronomy can deliver. It focused on impact […]

IAU General Assembly 2015 – New Regional Offices Signing Event

The International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) Office of Astronomy for Development (OAD) has established new coordinating offices in Armenia, Colombia, Jordan, Nigeria and Portugal. Supporting the use of astronomy as a tool for development in specific regions and languages, the new partnerships form part of the IAU’s decadal strategic plan — which aims to realise the […]

IAU General Assembly 2015

The OAD shared a booth with the Office of Astronomy Outreach at the IAU General Assembly 2015 in Honolulu, Hawaii. For two weeks, we coordinated all our activities from the stand. It acted as the meeting point for our global network and for several Astronomy for Development discussions. Our team, along with the OAO, explained the […]

Beyond the niche: how AuthorAID has expanded my academic horizons

Five years ago, I made the life-changing decision to resign from my comfortable academic position at the University of Sheffield, a well‐respected university in the north of England, and move to the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Peking University. Then, as now, my research focused on “star clusters”, which are the observational foundation […]

Spreading science education, one telescope at a time

The following article is from the website of University of California Santa Cruz, where one of the project coordinators is completing his graduate studies in astrophysics. By Peggy Townsend If not for a down-on-his luck Mongolian astronomer with a penchant for drinking, 44 schools in that rugged country might not have telescopes with which to peer […]