Gaia in the UK

Taking the Galactic Census

MSSL outreach award for Gaia scientist

George Seabroke and Prof Alan Smith with the award

Dr George Seabroke (left) and Professor Alan Smith, the Director of the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, with the award. Photo credit: Martin de la Nougerede.

We are pleased to report that one of our colleagues, Dr George Seabroke, won this year’s MSSL Elizabeth Puchnarewicz Award for Outstanding Contribution to Public Outreach.

George at Gaia BSF stand

George (top right) at the Gaia stand at the British Science Festival. Photo credit: Dr Anna Hourihane.

Staff and students gathered to celebrate their achievements at the annual Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) Awards Ceremony on 20th November, 2014. This event recognises the achievements of staff and students across the range of activities undertaken by MSSL.  One of the awards is the Elizabeth Puchnarewicz Award for Outstanding Contribution to Public Outreach.  It is named after Dr Elizabeth Puchnarewicz (1964 - 2003), who was an excellent lecturer and researcher in astrophysics at MSSL with a real flare and skill in public outreach.

This year this award went to Dr George Seabroke. George is an astronomer in the MSSL Astro Group. He is MSSL’s Gaia Data Flow Scientist and is working with members of MSSL’s Software Engineering Group to develop the on-ground data processing pipeline for Gaia’s Radial Velocity Spectrometer (RVS).   In the last year George’s outreach activities have included: staffing the Gaia stand at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition (RSSSE), the British Science Festival and the MSSL Open Day; giving talks at the Gaia Live in Schools event, the National Continued Professional Development event “Space as a Context for Teaching Science” and the MSSL Open Day; and writing an ESA Gaia blog about commissioning RVS and a MSSL Astro blog about the Gaia stand at the RSSSE.

George also wrote articles about e2v and Gaia CCDs for our website.

Page last updated: 07 December 2023