Khaled Said, of the University of Cape Town, has been awarded The Gruber Foundation Fellowship.

In conjunction with the International Astronomical Union (IAU), The Gruber Foundation (TGF) funds an annual fellowship for young astronomers, in the amount of US$50 000. The recipient is an extremely promising young investigator working in any field of astrophysics.

The 2017 recipient, Khaled Said, studies cosmology, looking at galaxies located in the region of the sky obscured by the Milky Way, known as the Zone of Avoidance, with the aim of gaining better insight into the distribution and dynamics of galaxies in the local Universe.

Khaled will hold his fellowship at the Australian National University, where he will continue this work, but over a much larger area of sky — the entire southern hemisphere. He is honoured to receive the fellowship: “I'm very grateful to the IAU and TGF for selecting me. The Gruber Foundation Fellowship will allow me to continue to develop my career in cosmology; it's a great step towards making my next goals come true.”

More information

The IAU is the international astronomical organisation that brings together more than 10 000 professional astronomers from almost 100 countries. Its mission is to promote and safeguard the science of astronomy in all its aspects through international cooperation. The IAU also serves as the internationally recognised authority for assigning designations to celestial bodies and the surface features on them. Founded in 1919, the IAU is the world's largest professional body for astronomers.

The Gruber Foundation

With the aim to promote the science of cosmology and other branches of astronomy, The Gruber Foundation (TGF) created the TGF Fellowship Programme. Since 2001, TGF has entrusted the IAU with the selection of one TGF fellow each year, the award going to a young postdoc working in any field of astrophysics, either theoretical, observational or experimental.

TGF Fellowships are intended as a research grant covering travel, subsistence and research expenses, supplementing a postdoctoral appointment at the host institution. The Fellowship may be held in conjunction with any other fellowship or award. For further information about the award, see here.

The application procedure is available here.

A list of past recipients and their citations is available here.

There also exists an annual TGF Cosmology Prize, consisting of a gold medal and a cash prize of US$500 000. The winner is selected by an international Advisory Board of seven members, nominated by the IAU and three other international scientific unions in fields relevant to cosmology.

Links

• The Gruber Foundation Fellowships
• The Gruber Foundation Cosmology Prize

Contacts

Piero Benvenuti
General Secretary, International Astronomical Union
Paris, France
Tel: +33 1 43 25 83 58
Email: iau-general.secretary@iap.fr

Lars Lindberg Christensen
IAU Press Officer
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 320 06 761
Cell: +49 173 38 72 621
Email: lars@eso.org