Khaled Said, a PhD student in the Department of Astronomy at UCT 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.

Professor Patrick Woudt, Head of the Department of Astronomy commented, "This is a wonderful achievement for Mr Said, who recently received three A's  on his PhD examiners reports".  

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 and said, “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.”

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.