NSBP Member, Hakeem Oluseyi, selected to be a TEDGlobal 2012 Fellow March 31, 2012

Statement by South African Institute of Physics on the KAT-7 Milestone March 20, 2012

“The South African Institute of Physics is very pleased to see the announcement of the scientific commissioning of a new and exciting mode of the KAT-7 radio telescope, the precursor to the more powerful MeerKAT telescope now under construction. The first images represent high resolution velocity measurements of hydrogen gas clouds within a nearby galaxy, which is a remarkable early achievement. Such measurements contribute to the most fundamental questions in physics, related to the existence of Dark Matter and possible new models for gravity. These are exciting times for physics and astronomy in South Africa. With the Southern African Large Telescope, the KAT-7 and MeerKAT arrays, the HESS facility in Namibia, and with our colleagues on the continent and around the world, Southern Africa has already achieved a multi-wavelength capability in astronomy that is world-class. We are grateful for the support our government has given to these endeavors. This has led to a massive growth in globally competitive research capacity, which is in fact spreading throughout Africa. We look boldly to the future not only for the scientific results that will be achieved, but the overall public benefits from spin-off innovation and high level capacity building that these projects will continue to bring.” – SAIP President.

Synchrotron Science on the Move in South Africa February 4, 2012

By Sekazi K. Mtingwa
MIT and African Laser Centre
Consultant to Brookhaven National Laboratory

Excitement is growing within South Africa’s synchrotron light source user community. That excitement led to a two-day workshop, held December 1-2, 2011, in Pretoria to finalize plans for the drafting of a strategic plan document to be submitted to the government’s Department of Science and Technology (DST), which is broadly responsible for science and technology in the country, and the National Research Foundation (NRF), which is responsible for the distribution of research funding similar to what the National Science Foundation does in the United States. Top officials from those agencies attended the workshop, including Romilla Maharaj, NRF Executive Director of Human and Institutional Capacity Development; Rakeshnie Ramoutar, NRF Program Director of Strategic Platforms; and Takalani Nemaungani, DST Director of Global Projects. Daniel Adams, Chief Director: Emerging Research Areas & Infrastructure at the DST, provided funding for the workshop and the South African Institute of Physics (SAIP), which is similar to our American Physical Society, handled the logistics.

The entity that mainly drove the convening of the workshop was the Synchrotron Research Roadmap Implementation Committee (SRRIC), which is chaired by Tshepo Ntsoane from the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (NECSA) and co-chaired by Wolf-Dieter Schubert from the University of the Western Cape.

Approximately forty scientists attended the meeting, including those from international facilities. Herman Winick of SLAC and Sekazi Mtingwa of MIT attended, and Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Erik Johnson and Ken Evans-Lutterodt joined via teleconferencing. Johnson and Evans-Lutterodt discussed the pros and cons of South Africa’s inheriting Brookhaven’s second generation light source called the National Synchrotron Light Source, which is soon to be replaced by NSLS II. However, the consensus of the workshop was that a new third generation facility would much better serve national and regional needs. The largest contingent of foreign visitors were from the various European light sources, including José Baruchel, Jürgen Härtwig, and the Laboratory Director General, Francesco Sette, from the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France; Jasper Plaisier from Elettra in Trieste, Italy; Trevor Rayment from Diamond in Oxfordshire, UK; and Hermann Franz from Petra III in Hamburg, Germany. Oxford University’s Angus Kirkland did an outstanding job of facilitating the two-day meeting.

South Africa is relatively new to the international community of synchrotron light source users. Simon Connell, of the University of Johannesburg, has documented the history of South African scientists’ usage of synchrotron radiation. The first were Trevor Derry and Jacques Pierre Friederich “Friedel” Sellschop (deceased), both from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits). In 1994, Derry performed studies of diamond surfaces at both the Synchrotron Radiation Source-Daresbury Laboratory and ESRF. During the same year, Sellschop participated in other diamond studies at ESRF. Then in 1996, Giovanni Hearne, currently at the University of Johannesburg, used the facility at ESRF to study materials under extreme pressures. Bryan Doyle, now at the University of Johannesburg, served as a postdoctoral researcher at ESRF around 1999. From those early efforts, the synchrotron light source user community started to grow.

Hearne’s early experiences at ESRF so excited him that, upon returning to South Africa, he wrote a two-page letter to Khotso Mokhele, then President of the Foundation for Research Development (now the National Research Foundation), to share those experiences and impress upon him that a synchrotron light source is a key single tool that could have wide impact across many scientific disciplines. Moreover, Hearne suggested that a long-term goal should be for South Africa to construct its own light source via a consortium of international partners, especially involving neighboring countries in Southern Africa.

In 2002, at the urging of the Edward Bouchet-Abdus Salam Institute (EBASI), which is an organization based at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste that promotes African – African American collaborations, the African Laser Centre included the design and construction of a synchrotron light source as a long-term goal in its Strategy and Business Plan. Next, Tony Joel and Gabriel Nothnagel of NECSA co-authored a motivational paper entitled, The South African Light Source: Proposal for a Feasibility Study for the Establishment of an African Synchrotron Radiation Facility (2003), followed by Tony Joel’s paper, The South African Synchrotron Initiative: The South African Light Source: A Synchrotron for Africa – Strategic Plan (2004). On another front, in 2004, the DST/NRF/SAIP commissioned an international panel of experts that released the report, Shaping the Future of Physics in South Africa, which called for consideration of new flagship projects to complement those in astronomy, such as the South African Large Telescope (SALT) and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). They used a synchrotron light source as a prime example of such a project. Key members of that panel from the U.S. were Ken Evans-Lutterodt, S. James Gates from the University of Maryland-College Park, and Guebre Tessema from the National Science Foundation.

The first organizational structure for a synchrotron science community took shape in 2003, when a committee of synchrotron users established the South African Synchrotron Initiative (SASI). Van Zyl de Villiers of NECSA played a key role in getting DST’s participation in SASI activities. The leadership of SASI mainly consisted of Tony Joel; Simon Connell; Giovanni Hearne; and Lowry Conradie, an accelerator physicist from South Africa’s national accelerator center called iThemba LABS, located just outside of 3 Cape Town. As a result of its participation with SASI, in January 2005, the DST itself assumed a leading role in building the synchrotron science community by forming the Synchrotron Task Team (STT), with Tshepo Seekoe of the DST serving as Chair and Simon Connell leading the development of the science case. It was during this period that the synchrotron science community began to mobilize as a coherent group.

With the assistance of SOLEIL, ESRF and other organizations, the STT organized the first two of a series of roughly biennial Science @ Synchrotrons Conferences (S@S) in November 2005 and February 2007. Both conferences were extremely successful in developing new projects and sparking the interest of students in synchrotron light source training. Members of the U.S. physics community, including Herman Winick, Alfred Msezane of Clark Atlanta University, and Sekazi Mtingwa, participated in planning and giving presentations at those conferences, which helped to establish a close partnership between South African synchrotron users and their foreign colleagues, especially the French. After the second conference in 2007, the synchrotron community further empowered itself with the establishment of SRRIC, which succeeded the STT in championing synchrotron science in South Africa. The first Chairs of SRRIC were Simon Connell and Giovanni Hearne. Following the S@S conference in February 2009, Brian Doyle assumed the Chair, followed by Tshepo Ntsoane.

All the above-mentioned activities culminated in the excitement that birthed the December 2011 Strategic Plan Workshop. The NRF representatives requested that SRRIC document the outputs of the workshop by March 2012 in the form of a white paper strategic plan. Then it would study the white paper to determine if it would give the go-ahead for the development of a detailed business plan by June 2012. Those dates were selected to coincide with the dates of the various stages of the government’s budgeting process. SSRIC appointed a three-person committee to write the strategic plan, consisting of Brian Masara, Executive Officer of SAIP; Douglas Sanyahumbi, Director of the Technology Transfer Office at the University of the Western Cape; and Sekazi Mtingwa, with the latter chairing the committee.

Although the strategic plan has not been completed, there are some overarching comments that can be made. First, there is widespread agreement that the mission of SRRIC going forward will be as follows: To support and facilitate the development and growth of synchrotron science in South Africa in order to ensure that it contributes to excellence in science, innovation and industrial development by exploiting the benefits of synchrotron radiation in advancing fundamental and applied science through

1. Developing human capital, including attracting back the African scientific Diaspora (brain gain) and mitigating any threat of brain drain of young South 4 Africans who have recognized this as a key research tool for their career development;
2. Developing key and/or strategic international collaborations;
3. Ensuring financial support to South Africans whose proposals successfully compete for beam-time at international synchrotron facilities; and
4. Promoting awareness and use of synchrotron science and its capacity to enable the exploration of new frontiers of technology.

In pursuing this mission, the synchrotron science community and the government must undertake a number of key initiatives, including

1. Deciding at what level it should formalize its relationships with foreign light source facilities, especially with ESRF, which is the most heavily used by South African researchers; (Francesco Sette invited South Africa to join ESRF as a Scientific Associate at the 1% level, since its researchers’ utilization of that facility is already approximately at that level.)
2. Studying the feasibility of constructing South African or multinational beam-lines at foreign synchrotron facilities;
3. Promoting a significant growth in the number of synchrotron users, with a heavy emphasis on increasing the number of students being trained, such as at the many synchrotron radiation schools that are offered at a number of international facilities and institutions, such as ICTP;
4. Developing programs to preserve and expand the existing technical expertise, such as sending scientists and engineers abroad to join accelerator teams at foreign facilities to expand capabilities in areas such as ultra-high vacuum systems, radiofrequency cavities, magnets, power supplies, and controls;
5. Improving the local, critical feeder infrastructure that allows researchers to prepare and analyze samples before and after being shipped for studies at foreign synchrotron facilities
6. Promoting greater involvement of industrial users;
7. Studying the feasibility for constructing a third generation light source;
8. Developing mechanisms to educate the public about the revolutions in science and technology, such as the discovery of new pharmaceuticals, that synchrotrons afford.

The figure appended provides a plot of South Africa’s synchrotron light source usage in terms of the number of users, beam-line shifts, graduate students trained, and visits to synchrotron facilities. The data represent a rough approximation, based on preliminary surveys; however, note that the 2011 data represent only part of the year, since 2011 had not ended by the time of the workshop. According to the data, the number of students trained at foreign facilities has increased from six (6) in 2005 to thirteen (13) in 2011, thus showing a growth in human capital, especially over the past three years. The long 5 distances and substantial travel expenses are major factors that impede the increase in the number of students being trained. A local facility would be most advantageous to address this need.

Among the workshop presentations, two were especially notable, since they involved applications of synchrotron light source techniques to disciplines for which many are not aware. One involved research in paleontology, for which Kristian Carlson from Wits discussed his collaboration with Lee Berger, also from Wits, and Paul Tafforeau from ESRF. Among other things, they perform dating and craniodental investigations of the possible human ancestor, Australopithecus sediba, which is the much-publicized fossil remains that Berger’s nine-year-old son, Matthew, discovered in 2008 while assisting his father in field work. In a presentation involving light source applications to heritage science, Leon “Jake” Jacobson from the McGregor Museum (Kimberly), discussed his applications of light sources to study rock art, namely ancient paintings on stones. He investigates such issues as the composition of the paints and how their interactions with rock substrates contribute to the art’s conservation. There is increasing worldwide interest in the use of synchrotron radiation in art and archaeology.

Finally, it is notable that Esna du Plessis and Bruce Anderson attended the workshop to represent the oil and gas company, Sasol Technology. They reported on their use of synchrotron radiation in pursuing extended X-ray absorption fine structure techniques for the study of H2, CO and synthetic gas activation of nano iron. They also made a strong case for a local source to enable more industrial use of light sources.

In conclusion, the momentum is building rapidly within the South African synchrotron science community. SRRIC, as its representative, is committed to maintaining, and indeed intensifying, that momentum. Based upon the Strategic Plan that summarizes the outputs of the December 2011 workshop, SRRIC is looking forward to a favorable decision from DST/NRF requesting it to proceed to the development of a detailed Business Plan by June 2012 in order to move synchrotron science in South Africa to the next level of international prominence.

January 30, 2012

This article is also published in the Spring 2012 Newsletter of the Forum on International Physics of the American Physical Society.

IAU Office of Astronomy Development Stakeholder’s Workshop – Day 3 December 17, 2011

by Dr. Jarita Holbrook
Tuesday December 15, 2011

The morning began with two presentations about funding. One was given by Ravi Sheth about International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy; the other by Ernst van Groningen about International Science Programme of Uppsala University, Sweden. Dr. van Groningen’s presentation included a framework much like a spreadsheet of things to think about and include before writing a request for funding that I thought was particularly useful. His talk can be seen at http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/19135075 starting at about 15 minutes into the broadcast. The rest of the morning was dedicated to two talks by popular vote: one by Pedru Russo and Valerio Ribeiro about Evaluation Metrics, the other by Carolina Govender about Evaluation & Planning focusing on having evaluation at every step of project planning. The first talk starts at about five minutes into the stream and the second about twenty one minutes into the stream.

The unique activity of the workshop was the Unconference Topics. Over the workshop there was a place for participants to write down topics that they wanted to discuss that they thought were important. Then the participants voted on each topic, those that received the most votes won. There were five popular topics:
1. Citizen Science,
2. Mobile Planetaria,
3. Distance Education,
4. Managing Volunteers, and
5. Evidence for economic development resulting from astronomy.

I joined the last group. After much discussion we determined there were four steps that OAD should take
A. The OAD should host a webpage where links to previous reports can be accessed. For example, it is possible to get actual amounts that governments spend on astronomy, as well as organizations such as NASA in the USA produce annual reports by state of the impact of NASA funding.
B. OAD should analyze the metrics and evaluation methods used in these existing reports and
C. determine if we need to develop new metrics to suit OAD goals or simply use existing ones.
D. OAD should develop a team of people that can then go to astronomy facilities and assess the economic impact of each. Why would such a team be important? As with all forms of evaluation and assessment associated with projects, the funders want to know where their money went and that positive things have come out of their investment. I would like to know who benefits from astronomy dollars and how this breaks down demographically by gender and ethnicity. To do this OAD will have to partner with more than just astronomers.

My thoughts about the workshop are positive. It brought together stakeholders who were primarily interested in
1. Educating the public about astronomy,
2. Attracting young people to become astronomers, and
3. Increasing the number of university level astronomy classes and programs worldwide.

As a result, most of the attendees were astronomers. For the next workshop, I would like to see stakeholders from the towns nearest observatories, from government offices responsible for development, from the United Nations Development Program, and perhaps indigenous rights groups. The point of the workshop was to help shape the breadth and scope of the new Office of Astronomy for Development, it would be interesting to get input from these development stakeholders.

IAU Office of Astronomy Development Stakeholder’s Workshop – Day 2 December 14, 2011

by Dr. Jarita Holbrook
Tuesday December 14, 2011

The IAU Office of Astronomy for Development (OAD) has three established task forces. Tuesday December 13th, the workshop participants were assigned to task forces and met for the morning session. The goal was to brainstorm new ideas at the intersection of astronomy and development, but also to consider how to implement the published OAD Strategic Plan.

In the afternoon we had breakout sessions by regions. The divisions were Africa and the Middle East, Latin America, Asia Pacific, North America, and Europe. In these breakout sessions we were to examine our regional strengths and regional needs. North America consisted of representatives from the United States and Canada. Mexico joined the Latin America group.

As with other places worldwide North America has underserved populations that we would like to help such as First Nations/Native Americans, underrepresented groups, inner city underclass, etc. There were two tiers of needs, the first was to do things that astronomers normally do but reach these underserved communities. That is astronomy education and astronomy outreach, there are already many programs and networks to do these but these need to be extended to these communities. The second need was to consider social justice, cultural awareness, and egalitarian science in the context of astronomy for development.

This area was a fairly new way of thinking for astronomers and specific strategies, methods, actions and activities are left for the future. Unlike other parts of the world, North America is rich in resources including in plain old cash!

There are over 300 volunteers registered through the OAD website, few of these are from North America. Thus, there is a need to recruit volunteers. The North American group did not discuss WHERE an OAD node office should be located instead we focused on the issues discussed above.

Silvia Torres-Peimbert (Mexico), Postdoc Linda Strubbe (USA), and Graduate Student and NSBP Member Deatrick Foster (USA)

IAU Office of Astronomy Development Stakeholders’ Workshop – Day 1 December 13, 2011

by Dr. Jarita Holbrook
Tuesday December 13, 2011

The first day was an opportunity for stakeholders to provide quick descriptions of their activities and how they wish to contribute to OAD or make use of OAD. Each person was to have five minutes and two slides. All of the presentations were interesting. What I found informative was the reports from the various divisions within the International Astronomical Union: IAU Commission 46: Education and Building Capacity and IAU Commission 55: Communicating Astronomy with the Public. Both of these have several working groups doing work relevant to OAD. Where the American Astronomical Society is very active regarding the direct needs of research astronomers, these two IAU commissions have been far more active socially beyond the needs of astronomers.

There were several groups focused specifically in Africa: AIMS-Next Einstein, the African Astronomical Society, South African Astronomical Observatory, and there was an artist group doing work in the town closest to the Observatory in Sutherland, South Africa.

I was given two minutes to represent the National Society of Black Physicists. I shared the following:

There are three established task forces:

1. Astronomy for Universities and Research

2. Astronomy for Children and Schools

3. Astronomy for the Public

Today we will be meeting within these task force to brainstorm, keeping in mind the OAD mission: To help further the use of astronomy as a tool for development by mobilizing the human and financial resources necessary in order to realize its scientific, technological and cultural benefits to society. OAD Director Kevin Govender reminds us that astronomy is not the silver bullet to solve all the problems fo the world. We are also to consider the economic impact of our activities.

The Global Office of Astronomy for Development December 10, 2011

by Dr. Jarita Holbrook
Friday December 9, 2011

The International Astronomical Union has opened the Global Office of Astronomy for Development in Cape Town, South Africa. The OAD was officially inaugurated in April 2011. The new office is housed in a refurbished building on the grounds of the South African Astronomical Observatory headquarters. It is part of the thriving astronomy community in South Africa.

My trip to South Africa has three purposes:

1) To represent the National Society of Black Physicists at the first OAD stakeholders workshop, December 11 – 14, 2011. See http://www.astronomyfordevelopment.org/index.php/oadevents/oadworkshop.

2) To plan the next African Cultural Astronomy conference for 2014 in Cape Town.

3) To discuss the findings of my research on the South African National Astrophysics and Space Sciences Programme (NASSP) with NASSP instructors and administrators.

Today, my focus is on the workshop. What is exciting is that the workshop is structured in an unique way that includes participant input as to what talks they want to hear on the last day! People have submitted possible talks for consideration. Given my absorption with finishing my book on NASSP, I did not submit a potential talk topic.

My role in the OAD workshop is multifold: Working with Astronomy without Borders, Steward Observatory, and the National Society of Black Physicists, we first considered hosting the OAD in the United States, but ultimately chose to support the South Africa bid, which they won. However, there is the possibility of a USA OAD node, i.e. there is a chance of an OAD satellite office in the United States. Though I haven’t been part of any formal discussions this last year, I know that there is still some interest from US astronomers to have a local office. I think an office in the USA would give greater access to USA based funding organizations that might be interested in financially supporting OAD projects.

More about OAD: Though based in South Africa, it is a global effort.

OAD came out of one of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009) projects. There are many IYA2009 people involved in OAD and they will be attending the workshop. Through my IYA2009 involvement I know many of them.

From the OAD website:

“The mission of the OAD is to help further the use of astronomy as a tool for development by mobilizing the human and financial resources necessary in order to realize the field’s scientific, technological and cultural benefits to society.”

OAD specifically addresses for the first time how astronomy positively impacts society economically as well as intellectually. Astronomers often think about and foster connections to K12 education and the public, but rarely think about how astronomy can stimulate local economies. OAD seeks to foster projects that encourage local economies and, more broadly, stimulate development. Though there is a historic connection between astronomy and economic development, it has not been the goal of or of great interest to astronomers. Thus, OAD marks a major change in the way astronomers think about themselves, what they do, and their impact on society.

I’m looking forward to this workshop!

Why does Africa need the Square Kilometre Array? August 16, 2011

2009 Address by Dr Adrian Tiplady, Manager, Site Characterization, SKA Africa Project Office

Honourable Minister, distinguished guests, ladies and gentleman

Why does Africa need the Square Kilometre Array? It is a question often posed by a public that is cognisant of the many high priorities that South Africa, and Africa as a whole, faces. We are currently engaged in an international race, competing to host a multi‐billion dollar, cutting edge astronomical facility that, in my view, may very well be mankind’s last great astronomical adventure still bound on earth. Do we, as South Africans, have the skills and expertise to compete within the world’s scientific community, to produce scientists and engineers of the highest calibre that will compete in the global knowledge economy? (answer at the end)

Today, during the International Year of Astronomy, the world faces economic recession and a financial crisis like never before. Uncertainties in food, water and energy supply loom, whilst climate change has become an ever present maxim in the implementation of global policies. Africa suffers from the unrelenting scourge of preventable diseases such as Aids and malaria. Why, then, has South Africa, and Africa, announced to the international community that “we have the desire to become the international hub for astronomy”?

In the US, President Barak Obama has committed to significantly increasing investment into science, as one of the most important parts of stimulating the economy. In his address to the US National Academy of Science, President Obama said:

“At such a difficult moment, there are those who say we cannot afford to invest in science, that support for research is somehow a luxury at moments defined by necessities. I fundamentally disagree. Science is more important for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment and our quality of life than ever before”.

He went on to say:

“The pursuit of discovery half a century ago fueled our prosperity … in the half century that followed. The commitment I am making today will fuel our success for another fifty years. That’s how we will ensure that our children and their children will look back on this generation’s work as that which defined the progress and delivered the prosperity of the 21st century. …. The fact is that an investigation into a particular physical, chemical or biological process may not pay off for a year or two, or a decade, or not at all. But when it does, the rewards are often broadly shared……..And that’s why …… the public sector must invest in this kind of research – because while the risks may be large, so are the rewards for our economy and our society. ….. It was basic research in … the photoelectric effect that would one day lead to solar panels. It was basic research in physics that would eventually produce the CAT scan. The calculations of today’s GPS satellites are based on the equations that Einstein put on paper more than a century ago”.

Even with the wealth disparity between the USA and South Africa, science and technology on the African continent is still seen as key to our ability to solve the problems of development that will determine the future of Africa and South Africa. Investment in mega‐science facilities has never been as important as it is today, where the brain drain, ill equipped school leavers and the lack of funding for higher education facilities to pursue areas of basic research have a directly detrimental effect on our ability to participate in the global knowledge economy, where we become innovators as opposed to consumers of technology.. And to retain these people, to stem the flow of skilled people leaving these shores, we need to provide flagship projects, such as those in astronomy that places cutting edge development in a variety of scientific and engineering disciplines at its core competency.

In 2003, the Department of Science and Technology and the National Research Foundation decided to enter into a race with four competing countries to host the world’s largest radio telescope. The Square Kilometre Array, as it is known, began as an international project in 1991, and currently involves 55 institutions across 19 countries. At a capital cost of more than $2 billion USD, the international consortium aims to have the SKA up and running by 2022, spending a further $150 million USD per year for the next 50 years in running costs. Much of this expenditure will be spent in the host country. The instrument is projected to be between 50 and 100 times more powerful than any radio astronomy facility ever built, an array of some 4,500 radio telescopes distributed over an area 3,000 km in extent. Combining the signals from each of these telescopes using a supercomputer 100 times more powerful than anything that exists today will create a virtual telescope, spanning 3000km in diameter, with a total collecting area of 1 square kilometre ‐ the equivalent of over 1,000,000 DSTV satellite dishes. This will result in an instrument with unparalleled sensitivity and resolution.

In this International Year of Astronomy, we believe we understand just 4% of all the matter and energy in the universe. The world’s astronomical community are striving to answer some of the great fundamental questions that face the world’s scientific community, and also raise new questions ‐ not just in astronomy but indeed in fundamental physics. Instruments such as the recently launched Herschel and Planck telescopes are being put into orbit 1.5 million km away from earth, collecting the kind of data that is possible now because of technological innovations in the last 10 years. Data that could help us answer the very mysteries of the universe. Plans are afoot to venture outside of the earth, and even place telescopes onto the dark side of the moon.

The SKA is part of this frontier of new instruments. Some of the many questions to be answered are :

What is the nature of dark energy – a mysterious force that acts in opposition to gravity on very large distances, repelling massive objects from each other with ever increasing force?

How did the universe and all that is contained within it evolve – radio signals have been travelling through the universe for 13 billion years, and we are only receiving some of them today as we take “pictures” of the big bang and the first stars and galaxies. We will be able to make snapshots of the universe through time.

Mankind has long striven to answer the question of whether there is life on other planets? The detection of biomolecules, or even artificial radio transmissions, may answer this. These questions and more, however, probably do not approach the rich rewards that will come from not what we plan to investigate, but rather what we haven’t planned for. Radio telescopes today are not remembered for what they were built, but instead for what they serendipitously discovered.

When South Africa, with a rather small human capital base in radio astronomy at the time, submitted its bid in 2005, we took the international community by surprise. Any degree of afro‐pessimism was dismissed, however, when South Africa was shortlisted along with radio astronomy international heavyweight ‐ Australia. Why? Because we have something that no amount of financial investment could ever buy. We have one of the best locations in the world to build and operate astronomical facilities, and a very committed Department of Science and Technology and National Treasury.

The Southern African Large Telescope in Sutherland has some of the darkest skies in the world – and the proposed SKA core site, just 80km northwest of the town of Carnarvon in the Northern Cape, has one of the best radio frequency environments in the world, free from a majority of the interfering radio signals that plague most of the world’s radio astronomy facilities. Furthermore, because of our geographic location on the planet, the very best astronomical sources to observe pass right overhead – we literally have the best window on the planet out of which to gaze upon the universe, and explore the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy.

Protection of this site is of the utmost importance – not only to protect South Africa’s geographical advantage, but to preserve the site for the world’s astronomical community. To meet this requirement, the Department of Science and Technology has promulgated the Astronomy Geographic Advantage Act, which allows for the establishment of an astronomy reserve in the Northern Cape Province. A reserve in which astronomy facilities are protected from sources of optical and radio interference.

The Australian Minister of Science has described winning the SKA bid as being like winning the Olympic site bid every day for 50 years. If the right to host the SKA were to be awarded to South Africa, and its 7 African partner countries, we would become a premier centre for research in astronomy and fundamental physics – going hand in hand with cutting edge development in the engineering technologies that co‐exist with this field of research.

As many of the technologies do not yet exist, to build the SKA will require a significant international effort in the fields of information and communication technology, supercomputing, mechanical, radio frequency, software and electronic engineering, physics, mathematics and, of course, astronomy. All fields that provide a basis for a strong knowledge economy. In 2004 the DST, together with the NRF, decided that simply competing to host the SKA would not meet the aims of building a knowledge economy – what was needed was a flagship project that would provide an opportunity to increase the skills base of our young scientists and engineers. We needed to participate in the technology development for the SKA, to grow a substantial base of scientists and engineers in South Africa that would be able to use, operate and maintain the SKA. And so was born the Karoo Array Telescope – an SKA science and technology pathfinder.

MeerKAT, as it is now known, will be the first radio interferometer built for astronomical purposes in South Africa. It will consist of 80 dishes, and once completed in 2013 will be one of the world’s premier radio astronomy facilities that will have not only South Africa scientists, but the world’s astronomical community, clamouring to use – 9 years before the SKA is scheduled to be commissioned.

Over the course of the last 5 years, we have built up a team of some 60 young scientists and engineers who are working on the technologies and algorithms required for the MeerKAT, which will in turn test the technologies for the SKA. Many of these people would have most probably left these shores already, looking for more exciting projects to work on in Silicon Valley, or other technology clusters. However, the lure and attraction of such a project as MeerKAT, and the larger SKA, has kept them here. Although none had any radio astronomy training, the team has quickly become an international leader in the development of technologies for radio astronomy facilities, which in fact are the generic technologies upon which the digital age depends, and are highly likely over many years to generate spin‐off technologies, innovations and patents. They have managed to do this through international collaboration with institutions such as Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester, Caltech, Cornell and Berkeley, as well as the national radio astronomy observatories in the USA, India, Italy and The Netherlands. We are also working closely with several South African universities and companies.

Amongst other things, the team has developed the first every radio telescope made from composite materials, and is playing a leading role in the international development of digital hardware for real time data processing. The first 7 MeerKAT dishes are being constructed as I speak.

In a recent editorial in the local WattNow magazine, Paddy Hartdegen says the following of the SKA and MeerKAT projects : “In my view, gee whiz projects such as the SKA and the MeerKAT go a long way to encouraging youngsters to take science and engineering disciplines more seriously. And if there is some thrill attached to science, astronomy or mathematics, then the students will apply themselves more diligently at primary and secondary schools, to ensure that they will have the necessary qualification to enter a university”. He goes on to say “I believe that projects such as the SKA can actually foster the sort of compelling interest that is reserved for sports stars and pop musicians“

So, is Paddy Hartdegen right? Do the SKA and MeerKAT projects have the qualities that will attract students into science, engineering and technology? In 2005, we initiated a Youth into Science and Engineering program, to rapidly grow the human capital base in astronomy and engineering in South Africa. To date, we have awarded 142 post‐doctoral fellowships, PhD, masters degree, honours degree and undergraduate degree bursaries. We are currently awarding approximately 45 bursaries per year. We are assisting universities to increase their astronomy research capacity, and to develop additional capacity to supervise students through international supervisory programs. The question is, can these students stand on their own two feet within the international astronomical community?

For the last 3 years, we have held a post‐graduate student conference for our bursary holders, where each student presents the results of his or her research. We invite a number of international experts to attend. To date, none have declined the invitation – not due to the opportunity for a holiday in Cape Town, but instead because of the astounding reputation this conference has grown internationally due to the quality of students and research. Professor Steve Rawlings, Head of Astrophysics at Oxford University, said on his departure “I am awfully impressed by what I have seen at this conference and how things have exploded on the science and engineering side on such a short timescale. South Africa is doing all the right things for the SKA”.

So, what has the establishment of a flagship project resulted in? People. Skilled people. The new measure of financial prosperity. Skilled people who are helping to change South Africa’s reputation as a place of high technology investment, research and development. These students, who cross the race and gender lines, may never stay within the field. However, they will carry the skills they have learnt into new areas, and their impact will be felt through a variety of socio‐economic lines.

The SKA, and the MeerKAT, has matured into a project of which we, as the South African scientific community, can be proud. It is a project that should capture the South African public’s imagination, young and old alike.

Do we, as South Africans, have the skills and expertise to compete within the world’s scientific community, to produce scientists and engineers of the highest calibre that will compete in the global knowledge economy?

We have in the past, and we will continue to do so. The answer, therefore, is a resounding yes.

Morgan State University Student Spends Summer at CERN July 24, 2011

Eric Michael Seabron, a junior physics major and Morgan honor student with a 3.66 grade point average was selected to join an exclusive 18-member U.S. physics team for a 10-week summer internship at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva, Switzerland. 

 

“This internship is one of the most competitive internships an undergraduate student of physics can compete for in the United States.  Mr. Seabron will benefit from this experience by expanding both his knowledge of physics and participating in the greatest scientific experiment ever proposed, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Participation in this internship increases his visibility as a up-and-coming young physicist, and his opportunities for getting into a Tier-1 physics graduate program with schools like Michigan, Harvard, Stanford and Princeton to name a few,” says Dr. Keith Jackson, chair of Morgan’s physics department.

Mr. Seabron is a member of the University of Michigan’s ATLAS team sponsored by a National Science Foundation research grant for undergraduates to work on a valuable piece of equipment (Large Hadron Collider) on the ATLAS experiment. ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS) is one of the six particle detector experiments constructed at the LHC. He and other student colleagues will assist in the commissioning of ATLAS EE detectors, analyze event data to create R-T curves and Muon Spectrometer graphs.

Since 2009, more than 2900 scientists and engineers from 172 institutions in 37 countries have worked on the ATLAS experiment. 

The ATLAS experiment’s primary objective is to detect particles created after high-energy proton on proton collisions.  ATLAS will allow us to learn about the basic forces that have shaped our Universe since the beginning of time (if time has a beginning) and that will determine its fate. Research at ATLAS will provide answers to some of the most basic questions in physics such as the origin of mass, proof of existence of multiple dimensions, unification of fundamental forces, and evidence for dark matter candidates in the Universe. ATLAS brings experimental physics into new territory. Most exciting is the completely unknown surprise – new processes and particles that would change our understanding of energy and matter.

 

“Students who are successful strive to do more than meet the minimum level of academic performance. If they take this attitude toward their undergraduate education they will find a plethora of new experiences, challenges and opportunities waiting for them, like Mr. Seabron,” says Dr. Jackson.  

 

Eric is standing holding ladder with Michigan teammate Kareem Hegazy (on ladder) in front of 20 ft. battery cells.

US SKA Consortium votes to dissolve itself in light of decadal survey and budget realities June 15, 2011

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