Top 15 Zara Randriamanakoto Quotes

Making a career in science in Africa is no longer a utopia. Believe in your dreams! But remember that there is no such thing as chance. Success does not fall from the sky.

Before coming to South Africa, I had very little knowledge about astronomy. At the time, there were no such subjects at university. My knowledge of astronomy was therefore limited to what I had learned in secondary school during geography lessons and through documentaries I had watched.

It wasn't easy at first. But I persevered and now I'm used to the language of Shakespeare. I read a lot and practiced English constantly since classes, conversations with friends and colleagues and especially communication outside the university are in English. It took time. But as the famous proverb says: "Practice makes perfect.

Although my research work is currently based in South Africa, I have also been supervising M2 students in astrophysics at the University of Antananarivo since 2017.

The SKA project has helped put Africa on the map of the astronomy world and this is just the beginning.

Astronomy is a discipline that requires technical skills and cutting-edge technology . And these can be used to tackle environmental challenges such as climate change or to plan the long-term response to the current famine in southern Madagascar.

Like humans, a star cluster is born, lives, and dies. The duration of this process could be up to a few billion years or more.

I am currently expanding my research topic to the study of star clusters.

Nothing predestined me to become an astronomer. I moved to Antananarivo for my university studies at the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Antananarivo. I obtained a master's degree in energy physics from the physics department in 2007.

On the research side, I study young massive star clusters hosted by interacting galaxies and burning ring galaxies to study the effect of the environment on the formation and evolution mechanisms of these proto-clusters. I also search for dying and restarted radio galaxies using LOFAR and MeerKAT to better understand the life cycle of radio galaxies.

Not specifically for African women, but for most women in this field and any other STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) related field: gender stereotypes and the inability to break the glass ceiling.

Have the audacity to protect your dreams, if you can dream it, you can do it. If you aspire to be an astrophysicist, start building your path towards your goal. Find a mentor along the way.

The main challenges I encountered were the language barriers (switching from French to English), exposure to a diverse culture in South Africa and especially adapting to the new educational system at the University of Cape Townbwhich required a lot of self-learning, self-discipline and perseverance.

I studied astronomy because it was an opportunity that I could not miss and a challenge that I wanted to take up. Madagascar needed young experts in this field given its involvement in the South African SKA project as an African partner country during South Africa's bid to host SKA, the future largest observatory in the world. Today, astronomy has also become my great passion.

I did my undergraduate degree in physics, then a BSc Honours in energy physics at the University of Antananarivo. I then did postgraduate studies in astronomy and astrophysics (BSc Honours, Masters and then PhD thesis) at the University of Cape Town. I obtained my PhD in astronomy in 2015. Between 2015 and 2018, I was a SKA postdoc at the same university.