Lisa Harvey-Smith

Lisa Harvey-Smith is group leader for the Australia Telescope National Facility at CSIRO’s Astronomy and Space Science division. Her research tackles a range of topics including astrophysical masers, massive star formation, planetary nebulae, the origin and evolution of cosmic magnetism and supernova remnants. Lisa co-supervises two Ph.D. students, Shaila Akhter and John Lopez, who are researching massive star formation in the centre of the Milky Way at the University of New South Wales. Lisa serves on the Science Advisory Committee to the Australian government on the Square Kilometre Array and was member of the ASKAP team awarded the 2015 CSIRO Chairman’s Medal. She won the Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Public Understanding of Australian Science Research 2016 and featured in the Sydney Morning Herald’s Top 100: Most Influential People in 2012.  She frequently promotes the work of CSIRO and the SKA project in the national and international media and via talks to schools, colleges, industry groups and amateur astronomers. In the past two years she opened “An Evening with Neil DeGrasse Tyson” at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion in front of a sold-out audience of 4000 people and was featured in live stage shows with Apollo astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Gene Cernan. Lisa takes part in two major outreach programs – as a mentor at the Pia Wadjarri remote community school in Western Australia and a partnership with Leichhardt Public School as part of CSIRO’s Scientists in Schools program.