Glasgow 2024 today announced that Professor Catherine Heymans, the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, will be appearing online as a Special Guest at this year’s Worldcon. As Professor of Observational Cosmology at the University of Edinburgh and Director of the GCCL Institute at the Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, Catherine specializes in observing the dark side of our Universe using deep sky observations to test whether we need to go beyond Einstein with our current theory of gravity.
Catherine’s recent two-year long battle with Long Covid and her passion to nevertheless continue her scientific research featured in a widely-shared Long Read article and podcast in the Guardian. Before the pandemic, Catherine appeared at music, art, philosophy, comedy, TED-x and science festivals. Worldcon will be the first time she returns to “the stage” since falling ill, made possible thanks to the full online access offered by Glasgow 2024.
Looking forward to her appearance, Catherine said “I’ve always loved the way that science fiction influences and drives scientists to think even bigger, and how scientists in turn inspire sci-fi writers to create and innovate new big dreams. Our communities spark off each other and I’m really looking forward to being part of the sparkle in Glasgow this summer!”
Glasgow 2024 Chair Esther MacCallum-Stewart added “I’m delighted that Prof. Heymans has agreed to be an online guest, especially after hearing some of her current research ideas! She exemplifies the best that Scotland has to offer by looking upwards, forwards and even across dimensions, in order to understand who and what we are.”
ABOUT CATHERINE HEYMANS. Professor Catherine Heymans is the 11th Astronomer Royal for Scotland, appointed by Her Majesty the Queen in 2021, the first woman to hold this title in its two-hundred year history. In 2022 she became the youngest person to receive the Royal Astronomical Society’s prestigious William Herschel medal for outstanding merit in observational astrophysics.
She is a fellow of both the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and the Leopoldina, the National Academies of Scotland and Germany. Catherine is a regular contributor to BBC Radio and TV, providing expert comment for a wide range of physics and space stories. She authored “The Dark Universe”, published as part of the Physics World Discovery Collection with the Institute of Physics. She also contributed to “Scotland in Space”, twinning with sci-fi author Russell Jones to create the short futuristic love story “Scotland at the end of the Universe”.
Professor Heyman’s full biography can be found on the Glasgow 2024 website.
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[Based on a press release.]