MoU signed bewteen UH and the South African MeerKAT project
Astronomers at UH have recently established a memorandum of understanding with the South African MeerKAT project. MeerKAT (meaning more KAT in Afrikaans, where KAT is the Karoo Array Telescope) is one of the precursor telescopes to the ˜1 billion Euro Square Kilometre Array (SKA). It will mean that PhD students, Postdoctoral researchers and staff will have the opportunity for exchange visits between South Africa and UH. UH joins only Oxford and Cambridge Universities in securing such an MoU. Dr Matt Jarvis of the Centre for Astrophysics Research at UH, who instigated the collaboration, explains, "It will allow UH to fully exploit the new generation of large radio telescopes and expand our world-wide leadership in optical and infrared surveys toward the radio wavebands. The huge leaps in technology in this area will ensure that we continue to be at the forefront of astronomical research well into the next decade."
Dr Matt Jarvis is also Chair of the Science Simulations working group within the International Science Working Group for the SKA.