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Catherine Heymans

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Catherine Heymans
FRSE
Heymans in 2014
Born1978 or 1979 (age 45–46)[2]
Hitchin, Hertfordshire, England
Alma materUniversity of Edinburgh (MPhys)
University of Oxford (DPhil)
Known forWeak gravitational lensing
AwardsGeorge Darwin Lectureship (2017)
Herschel Medal (2022)
Scientific career
FieldsAstrophysics
InstitutionsUniversity of Edinburgh
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy
University of British Columbia
Institut d'astrophysique de Paris
ThesisWeak gravitational lensing and intrinsic galaxy alignments
Doctoral advisor
  • Lance Miller[1]
Websitewww.roe.ac.uk/~heymans

Catherine Heymans FRSE (born 1978/1979) is a British astrophysicist, the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, and a professor at the University of Edinburgh based at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh.[3][4][5][6]

Early life

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Heymans was born and grew up in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, and educated at Hitchin Girls' School.[7][2]

She received a first class Master of Physics (MPhys) degree from the University of Edinburgh in 2000. In 2003, she received her doctorate from the University of Oxford for research, supervised by Lance Miller, and in collaboration with Alan Heavens, on gravitational lensing.[1]

Career and research

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She won a series of fellowships at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, the University of British Columbia, the Institut d'astrophysique de Paris and the University of Edinburgh.[clarification needed] In 2009 she was awarded a starting grant from the European Research Council (ERC) and was subsequently appointed a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh.

Heymans is best known for her work on using the technique of cosmic weak gravitational lensing to learn more about the Universe. She led the Shear Testing Programme STEP1 competition[8] and co-leads the lensing collaboration of the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey: CFHTLenS.[9][10]

Heymans is one of the leaders of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) project Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS). In 2018 she was presented with the Max Planck-Humboldt Research Award, which is worth €1.5 million and financed by funds from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The award is presented jointly by the Max Planck Society and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.[11] The award will be used to establish the German Centre for Cosmological Lensing at the Ruhr University Bochum.[12][13]

Heymans teaches on the Massive open online course (MOOC) at Coursera on AstroTech: The Science and Technology behind Astronomical Discovery.[14] Her research has been funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).[15]

Awards and honours

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Heymans was awarded the George Darwin Lectureship by the Royal Astronomical Society in 2017.[16] In 2018 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE).[17]

In May 2021, she was the first woman appointed as the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, and the 11th person to hold the post.[18]

Personal life

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Heymans has a partner and three children. Her partner volunteered to do the major part of the childcare. In March 2022, she contracted long COVID. In May 2023, she was suffering from long Covid, but had been able to continue some research activities by working in half-hour spurts. [19]

References

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  1. ^ a b Heymans, Catherine (2003). Weak gravitational lensing and intrinsic galaxy alignments. ora.ox.ac.uk (DPhil thesis). University of Oxford. OCLC 499971959. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.398117. Free access icon
  2. ^ a b Matthews, David (3 January 2019). "Interview with Catherine Heymans". Times Higher Education'. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
  3. ^ "Catherine Heymans". roe.ac.uk. Retrieved 9 November 2018.
  4. ^ Boyle, B. J.; Shanks, T.; Croom, S. M.; Smith, R. J.; Miller, L.; Loaring, N.; Heymans, C. (2000). "The 2dF QSO Redshift Survey -- I. The optical luminosity function of quasi-stellar objects". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 317 (4): 1014–1022. arXiv:astro-ph/0005368. Bibcode:2000MNRAS.317.1014B. doi:10.1046/j.1365-8711.2000.03730.x. ISSN 0035-8711. S2CID 204924257.
  5. ^ Amendola, Luca; Appleby, Stephen; Avgoustidis, Anastasios; Bacon, David; Baker, Tessa; et al. (2018). "Cosmology and fundamental physics with the Euclid satellite". Living Reviews in Relativity. 21 (1): 2. arXiv:1206.1225. Bibcode:2018LRR....21....2A. doi:10.1007/s41114-017-0010-3. ISSN 2367-3613. PMC 5897888. PMID 29674941.
  6. ^ Heymans, Catherine; Van Waerbeke, Ludovic; Bacon, David; Berge, Joel; Bernstein, Gary; et al. (2006). "The Shear Testing Programme – I. Weak lensing analysis of simulated ground-based observations". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 368 (3): 1323–1339. arXiv:astro-ph/0506112. Bibcode:2006MNRAS.368.1323H. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2006.10198.x. ISSN 0035-8711. S2CID 16439414.
  7. ^ Derrick, Maya (1 June 2021). "'I never thought I'd get quite this far!' - Professor on Astronomer Royal appointment". The Comet. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
  8. ^ "STEP: Shear TEsting Programme". roe.ac.uk. 5 December 2007. Retrieved 22 October 2012.
  9. ^ Heymans, Catherine; Van Waerbeke, Ludovic; Miller, Lance; Erben, Thomas; Hildebrandt, Hendrik; et al. (2012). "CFHTLenS: the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope Lensing Survey". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 427 (1): 146–166. arXiv:1210.0032. Bibcode:2012MNRAS.427..146H. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21952.x. ISSN 0035-8711. S2CID 24731530.
  10. ^ "News CFHT - Astronomers reach new frontiers of dark matter". cfht.hawaii.edu. Retrieved 22 October 2012.
  11. ^ "Max Planck-Humboldt Research Award for Catherine Heymans". mpg.de. Retrieved 17 December 2019.
  12. ^ Homepage of the German Center for Cosmological Lensing at Ruhr University Bochum
  13. ^ Britische Wissenschaftlerin will die dunkle Materie verstehen, Press release RUB, August 2019
  14. ^ "AstroTech: The Science and Technology behind Astronomical Discovery". coursera.org.
  15. ^ Anon (2018). "UK government research grants awarded to Catherine Heymans". ukri.org. Swindon: United Kingdom Research and Innovation. Archived from the original on 12 November 2018.
  16. ^ "Catherine Heymans". New Scientist Live 2018. Archived from the original on 8 November 2018. Retrieved 8 November 2018.
  17. ^ "Professor Catherine Heymans FRSE". rse.org.uk. Royal Society of Edinburgh. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
  18. ^ "Dark universe expert first female Astronomer Royal for Scotland". STV News. 27 May 2021. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  19. ^ Alex Blasdel (2 May 2023). "The dark universe: can a scientist battling long Covid unlock the mysteries of the cosmos?". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 May 2023.
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