First woman appointed as new Astronomer Royal

Professor Michele Dougherty has been approved by King Charles III to be the new Astronomer Royal for UK, and will be the first woman to hold this position since the role was first created 350 years ago.

The role of Astronomer Royal was created in 1675, with the goal of discovering how to determine longitude at sea when out of sight of land, and the holder of this position was based at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. 

Today, the role is an honourary one, awarded to a prominent astronomer who is expected to advise the Monarch on astronomical matters. 

Professor Dougherty will hold the role alongside her current positions as Executive Chair of the Science and Technology Facilities Council, President-elect of the Institute of Physics and a Professor of Space Physics at Imperial College London.

Speaking of her new appointment, she said, "I am absolutely delighted to be taking on the important role of Astronomer Royal. As a young child I never thought I’d end up working on planetary spacecraft missions  and science, so I can’t quite believe I’m actually taking on this position."

"In this role I look forward to engaging the general public in how exciting astronomy is, and how important it and its outcomes are to our  everyday life," she added.

Professor Dougherty was educated at the University of Natal in South Africa, where she was awarded a PhD in 1988 for research on wave-particle interactions in dispersive and anisotropic media.

She was Principal Investigator for the magnetometer instrument onboard the CASSINI-HUYGENS mission to Saturn and its moons and is the Principal Investigator of the magnetometer instrument for the European Space Agency mission, the JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE), which is enroute to Jupiter and its moons.

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