Michele Dougherty's extraordinary career, the first “real astronomer” in the United Kingdom in 350 years

The expert participates in one of the most exciting space missions to date: a probe of the European Space Agency to Jupiter's icy moons to assess whether they have potential to house life.

“It would be surprising that there was no life in our solar system,” he says with enthusiasm.

Her trip to Jupiter began when she was ten years old and saw the planet through a telescope that she built with her sister and her father.

“It was then that I had my first vision of Jupiter and his four great moons, without ever imagining that I would end up sending instruments in a spacecraft,” he says.

“When I think about it, I have to pinch and, now, I also have to pinch when I was appointed real astronomer.”

Dougherty did not study science in high school in South Africa, where it grew.

“I had to choose between schools. One of them taught science, but none of my friends went to her,” he explains. “So, like a young 13 -year -old girl, I thought: I want to go with my friends.”

But the young Dougherty was so good in mathematics that she was admitted to study a science career at the University of Natal, in South Africa.

In 1989, he obtained the doctorate for his research on wave-particle interactions in dispersive and anisotropic media.

“The first two years were hard. It was like learning a new language,” he says. But soon it was updated.

“I said yes to things I didn't know how to do and I learned on the march,” he recalls.

Then, he got a scholarship at the Max Planck Institute in Germany and went to the United Kingdom to become one of the most outstanding space scientists in the country, demonstrating enormous value, in addition to talent.

In 2018, he became head of the Department of Physics of Imperial College, in London.

Dougherty is a member of the Royal Society, the oldest scientific society in the United Kingdom and one of the oldest in Europe.

He received the gold medal in geophysics of the real astronomical society in 2017 and the title of CBE (for its acronym in English: Commander of the Order of the British Empire), which is a decoration offered by British royalty to individuals for its outstanding contributions in different areas.

The real astronomer function goes back to the creation of the Real Greenwich Observatory in 1675.

John Flamsteed, from Derby, was the first person who played this function. At that time, the work consisted above all to advise the king on the use of the stars to improve maritime navigation.

The head curator of the Observatory, Louise Devoy, explains that the work evolved over the years to become one of the most important scientific voices in the country.

“In the nineteenth century, the royal astronomer began to be required as an advisor to the Government, for example, in terms of railways, bridges or telegraphy, a series of issues that went beyond astronomy,” he says.

“If we move quickly until the twentieth century, it is rather to develop international collaborations, so there are British astronomers working on telescopes in Chile, Canary Islands and even in the James Webb space telescope.”

Throughout three and a half centuries, 15 men have held the position of astronomer with a higher rank throughout the United Kingdom. But in the Royal Observatory of Edinburgh, Professor Catherine Heyman occupies an equivalent position as a real astronomer for Scotland since 2021.

She was delighted with the appointment of Professor Dougherty.

“During the last 350 years, the title of Royal Astronomer has been occupied by a white male astronomer, and that reflected in some way the aspect that the astronomical community has had in recent centuries. But things are changing,” he says.

“Science is increasingly diverse, which is necessary if we want to answer these great questions, and I am absolutely delighted that now the two real astronomers of the United Kingdom are women, which reflects the fact that science is for all.”

Dougherty herself does not want to give too much importance to being the first woman who occupies this position in the United Kingdom, but hopes to inspire others to follow her steps.

“I think it is important. I think that when young children in particular see someone who looks like them doing a job that they think they would never have the opportunity to do, change their mentality a bit,” he told the BBC.

Dougherty experienced it when she was director of the Department of Physics of Imperial College in London between 2018 and 2024.

During that time, the percentage of first -year university students who arrived at that study center increased from around 19% to 25%.

“It was not a huge change,” he says, “but positive. And I think it is because the students saw that I played a role they could aspire in the future.”

This article was written and edited by our journalists with the help of an artificial intelligence tool for translation, As part of a pilot program.

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