New SKAO Director-General Prof. Jessica Dempsey takes up post
Appointed last year following a thorough selection process and final decision by the SKAO Council, which represents the Observatory’s member states, Prof. Dempsey succeeds Prof. Philip Diamond in the role.
Prof. Dempsey joins at an exciting time as the Observatory is about to transition to early science operations, while the construction of the two SKA telescopes is progressing at pace in Australia and South Africa. The SKAO is currently preparing for the start of science verification – when the science community will gain access to the first SKAO data – which is due to begin in the second half of 2027 for the SKA-Low telescope in Australia.
“As someone who loves nothing more than building and running telescopes, there is not a better time to be asked to take up this role – we are just getting to the cool stuff!” Prof. Dempsey said.
“This is a daring project, unprecedented in scale and scope, and it will need the skills of every single team member on three continents and all the support of our broad global partnership to see it come to light. It is humbling to be asked to lead these amazing teams and this ambitious global endeavour, and I am passionately dedicated to its success.”
Prof. Dempsey brings significant experience in both research and senior leadership, having previously been the director of the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON), deputy director of the East Asian Observatory in Hawai’i, USA, and head of operations at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope.
Prof. Dempsey specialises in astronomical telescopes and has built and operated them on every continent, in some of the world’s most extreme environments. Her extensive research interests range from wide-field surveys of the diverse molecules in the galaxy at radio wavelengths to being a founding member of the Breakthrough Prize-winning Event Horizon Telescope team, which captured an image of a black hole for the first time.
As a strong advocate for greater diversity, equity and opportunity at all levels of astronomy, Prof. Dempsey has spoken extensively about creating inclusive practices in the workplace. She is the world’s first Professor of Ethics in Astronomy at Radboud University in the Netherlands since 2023.
The director-general is the SKAO’s most senior position and the intergovernmental organisation’s legal representative, with responsibility for ensuring the successful delivery of the SKAO’s construction and operations phases, and leadership of the Observatory’s international staff distributed across multiple sites in three countries.