Women for Africa participates in the annual encounter of the European Astronomical Society

Madrid, June 23, 2022. With more than 25 years of history and having become a reference in astronomy at the European level, the annual meeting of the European Astronomical Society will be held again from June 27 to July 1, this time at the Palacio de Congresos de Valencia.

The Women for Africa Foundation (FMxA) is collaborating in this event, which is expected to be attended by more than 1,700 people. The president of the Foundation, María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, will take part in the opening ceremony along with Roger Davis, president of the European Astronomical Society and Rosa Donat, vice-rector of Transference and Innovation of the University of Valencia, among others.

For its part, the meeting will host numerous symposia, conferences and plenary sessions, including the conference by María Teresa Fernandez de la Vega “PER ASPERA AD ASTRA: Through Africa’s hard paths up to the stars”. The program will also include Brenda Namumba, the first female astrophysicist in Zambia and beneficiary of the veteran FMxA project “Ellas Investigan”, through which she carried out her research stay at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) with funding from the Government of the Canary Islands.

Dr. Namumba will present the conference “Bridging Africa and inspiring the future through Science: my story”, highlighting the importance and need for more and more female scientists both in Africa and globally. These interventions will highlight the momentum of astronomy on the African continent to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This is demonstrated by the next General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union that, for the first time since its creation in 1919, will take place in Africa, specifically in Cape Town, South Africa in 2024.

This also opens a new path for “Ellas Investigan”, which in its latest edition once again has two female astronomers: Marie Korsaga from Burkina Faso and Elisabeth Naluminsa from Uganda. Both of them will carry out their research stays at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAS).