Nelly Tate is awarded a scholarship to attend the 2023 Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand annual conference in Auckland.

Earlier this year I applied for, and was lucky to receive, a SWAPA (Students With A Passion for Astronomy) Scholarship. Professor John Hearnshaw introduced SWAPA in 2014. It is a program that recognises 10-15 high-achieving secondary school students with a passion for science and astronomy each year, and allows them to attend the yearly RASNZ (Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand) Conference. Michael Snowden made a generous donation in 2018 (that is now administered by the University of Canterbury Foundation) that covers the travel, accommodation, registration, and banquet expenses of the students with SWAPA scholarships.

At King’s Birthday Weekend, I travelled to Auckland for the RASNZ Conference. Over the weekend I listened to many inspirational speakers, which affirmed my plans to pursue a career in Space Science.

Charlie Lineweaver was one of the keynote speakers - he spoke about “Exoplanets and Habitability”. Chris Lintott was the other keynote speaker, and he discussed “Robots, crowds and the sky: Planning for serendipity in large scale surveys”. Some of the other topics that I found very interesting were “What is dark matter? From MOA to galaxy clusters” (Yvette Perrott); “A Parliamentary petition for dark sky protection” (John Hearnshaw); “Exoplanet Watch and Eyes on Exoplanets” (Leah Albrow); “Weather and environmental limitations to stargazing” (Adrien Vilquin Barrajon); and “Modelling Molecular Clouds with Potential Cosmic Ray Accelerators” (Rhia Hewett).

A highlight of the weekend was meeting thirteen other secondary students who share the same interests and passions in Astronomy as I do. It was also great to see, and listen to, female scientists who are leaders in their field. I really appreciated the opportunity to attend the conference and thank everyone who made it possible - including Mrs Herbert for recommending the application to me.

Written by Nelly Tate.