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

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.

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.

My research topics mainly revolve on multi-wavelength investigation of young massive star clusters in interacting and collisional ring galaxies. I am also interested in the life cycle of radio AGN.