On the week of the 8th to the 12th of July 2024, vice-president of the Zimbabwean Astronomical Society, Jason Shingirai Makechemu, attended a conference in Durham titled ‘AGN Across continents’ where he presented his research and a brief introduction to ZAS. The aim of this conference was to develop and foster collaboration in galaxy and black hole astrophysics between African and British institutions and research groups.
Shingirai not only presented his research on how he is using Machine-Learning to visually classify AGN host galaxy morphologies in JWST images, but he also soft launched the Zimbabwean Astronomical Society for the first time!
As an add on to his presentation, he mentioned the need for inter-African collaboration to help grow ZAS, as well as other astronomical institutions, especially with regards to education and outreach programs within the field of astronomy.
Many close connections and opportunities for collaboration were discussed, including with countries in our neighbourhood such as Mozambique, Namibia, and Zambia, but also as far as Ethiopia, Nigeria, Uganda, and Cameroon!
We as a society are going to be promoting ZAS very heavily over the coming months, so stay tuned to our social media pages to see what’s going on with ZAS from all our members!
