The Jocelyn Bell Burnell Inspiration Medal is awarded biennially
by the European Astronomical Society
to recognise astronomers of all career stages whose contribution has gone beyond scientific research.
2023
The 2023 Jocelyn Bell Burnell Inspiration Medal is awarded to
for his work over decades to set up a programme of education in space science in developing countries around the world.
Prof. Mariano Méndez studied in Argentina, where he obtained his PhD in Astronomy cum-laude in 1989. He is full professor at the Faculty of Science and Engineering at the University of Groningen where he established a new, and successful, line of research at the Kapteyn Institute. Prof. Méndez has organised or co-organised tens of international conferences and gave many invited talks at international conferences and colloquia. Prof. Méndez developed a programme of education on space science for the benefit of a large community of young scientists in developing countries He has raised funds from several international organisations, among others COSPAR, IAU, NASA, ESA, and JAXA, to carry out a programme of capacity-building workshops on space science in developing countries. In 2018 he received a medal from COSPAR for this endeavour.
The programme led by Prof. Méndez consists of a series of 2-week long, hands-on, Capacity-Building Workshops, with participants ranging from master students to young staff members. The workshops, held at a rate of about 3 per year, have so far trained more than 1500 participants from over 50 different countries all over the world (e.g., Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Cyprus, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Israel, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam), and covered a full range of topics related to space sciences: astrophysics, Earth surface and Earth atmosphere, Earth ionosphere, small solar-system bodies, space weather, solar physics, crystallography from space and science with small satellites.
To carry out this programme, Prof. Méndez secured funds from COSPAR, IAU, NASA, ESA, JAXA, national funding agencies and private foundations for a total of about 1.5 M€ in the last 10 years. The participants are selected on the basis of their scientific merit, measured in the context of their countries of origin; after being selected, the organization covers all accommodation and meals expenses for the participants throughout the workshop. Additionally, in several instances, the organization partly covers the participants' travel expenses to enable them to attend the workshop.
Besides the programme of workshops, Prof. Méndez manages a fellowship programme for those young scientists who participated in one of these workshops. Within this programme, about a dozen candidates were selected each year to carry out an 8-week visit to the laboratory of one of the lecturers to finish the project that they had started at the workshop. The costs of these fellowships were supported by funds provided by different organisations, including COSPAR, NASA, ESA, ISRO and local funding agencies in the country of the fellows and of the hosting institution. In total, about 60 fellowships were supported by this programme.
The success of Prof. Méndez's initiative, and the impact of the workshops and fellowships on the scientific career of young scientists in developing countries, have been enormous, with many of the participants of these workshops now being high-level officials of national space programmes in their own countries or established scientists all over the world.
Prof. Méndez has dedicated this effort voluntarily, while simultaneously pursuing a very productive scientific career.
In the past decades, Professor Mariano Méndez has devoted a large share of his time and energy to reaching out to young people in developing countries. He has been extremely successful in this, inspiring an entire generation of young and aspiring scientists.
for her work on developing astronomy, science and education as a route out of poverty and to improve the quality of life for young people in Africa.
Prof. Mirjana Pović is Assistant Professor at the Ethiopian Space Science and Technology Institute (ESSTI), Associate researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC, Spain), and honorary lecturer at the Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST, Uganda). She grew up in former Yugoslavia, now Serbia, and obtained her degree in astrophysics from the University of Belgrade. She obtained her PhD in astrophysics in 2010 at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC, Spain), in the field of galaxy formation and evolution. For more than 10 years she has been working on the development of astronomy, science and education in Africa through different projects and initiatives related with research collaborations, institutional development, student supervision, training, lecturing, outreach, and girls and women in science. In 2018 she received the first Nature Research Award for Inspiring Science, for her research achievements and contribution to the society. In 2019 the Serbian government invited her to be one of their science ambassadors and she received a recognition from ESSTI for her contributions.
Prof. Mirjana Pović has been greatly contributing for the development of astronomy, science, and education in Africa over the past 10 years, and also for starting/strengthening collaborations with Europe. She has led or co-led different projects and initiatives in several African countries, participating in the IAU Office of Astronomy for Development (OAD), the East-African Regional OAD, and the African Astronomical Society (AfAS).
She has contributed to develop human capacities by supervising several MSc and PhD theses in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania since 2014. She has been lecturing at all academic levels in several African countries since 2011. Her activities include the organization of several schools in astronomy, coordination of STEM for GIRLS in Ethiopia initiative, and in general astronomy and science outreach activities in East-African countries, Serbia and Spain. In 2020, the Ethiopian Space Science Society (ESSS) recognised her contribution to astronomy education and outreach in Ethiopia. She was the Secretary of the very first Committee for the Ethiopian Space Science and Technology Road Map (2016-2018), the only foreigner, and woman, among its 12 members and Coordinator of the Space Science Group of the very first committee for the Ethiopian Space Policy and Strategy (2018-2019). Currently she is participating in development of the African Strategy for Fundamental and Applied Physics (ASFAP) as one of its co-conveners of the Astrophysics and Cosmology working group.
She has contributed to the institutional development of ESSTI: after her nomination as Assistant professor of the Astronomy & Astrophysics Research and Development Department in 2016, she served as the Head of Department (2018-2020). She served as a member in the committees of Science, Research, Research Ethics, and Thematic Areas and has developed some of the first ESSTI guidelines, leading in 2019 to her recognition by the ESSTI for her contributions and performance. Together with her African colleagues she helped in setting up some of the very first research groups and joint projects in extragalactic astronomy in ESSTI and AAU in Ethiopia, University of Rwanda, Mbarara University of Science and Technology in Uganda, University of Dodoma in collaboration with the Open University of Tanzania, and she is collaborating with the SAAO and UCT in South Africa. Some of the very first publications of astronomical research in-situ in these East-African countries have resulted with the strengthening of collaborations between them, and between African countries and others, further reinforced by Prof. Pović's co-coordination of several networking and mobility proposals (Astronomy and Astrophysics Arising Across Africa - 5A, EU-RISE, 6 African and 4 European countries, and MATERNA: Mobility in Africa for Training, Education and Research, EU-H2020 network, 7 African and 2 European countries).
Prof. Mirjana Pović has further been members of Science Organisation Committee and/or organised several scientific meetings in Africa, such as the IAU Regional Meeting MEARIM, in Addis (2017), IAU Symposim 356 (the first IAU symposium ever in Ethiopia and East-Africa, third in Africa), the 1st AfAS Business-Science Meeting (Ethiopia, 2019), the 1st AfAS Annual Meeting (virtual, 2021), EAS-EWASS sessions on African-European collaborations in 2018 (UK) and in 2020 (virtual). She is also NOC member of the IAU General Assembly in Cape Town (2024).
Prof. Pović served the African Astronomical Society by contributing in defining its strategies for long-term astronomy developments across Africa. She has been Board member of the AfAS Science Committee since 2019, coordinator of the « Astronomy in Africa Survey » as a principal promoter of the project. She serves as a role model for women in astronomy and science by actively participating in STEM for GIRLS activities under the Society of Ethopian Women in Science and Technology (SEWiST); she has set up and coordinates the African Network of Women in Astronomy (AfNWA) under AfAS.
Prof. Mirjana Pović deeply believes that through education and science we can fight poverty on a long-term and make our world a better place for everyone, independently on where individual roots are.
The European Astronomical Society wishes to recognise astronomers of all career stages whose contribution beyond scientific research. The name of the prize, Jocelyn Bell Burnell Inspiration Medal, has been decided by the EAS Council, after consultation
of the EAS membership, and was awarded for the first time in 2021 and will be in alternate years thereafter.
The Prize will be awarded to:
an individual who has overcome disadvantage, be it social, economic or of other nature, to make an important contribution to Astronomy and by their example has inspired others;
or
an individual, organisation or group that has enabled advances in research and/or study in Astronomy or used Astronomy to benefit to the community at large;
or
an individual, organisation or group that has, through the teaching and application of astronomy, facilitated or encouraged underrepresented and/or underprivileged groups to engage with and exploit advances in science.
