Dr. Karen Masters, senior lecturer at the University of Portsmouth’s Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation and Director of Public Education and Outreach for SDSS-IV, has won the Women of the Future Science award. The Women of the Future Awards acknowledge successful young women in Britain and are handed out in fields ranging from business to arts and culture to science and technology. Karen (as we like to call her) received the award for her work
on understanding how galaxies form and evolve over the history of the universe. Karen uses a diverse set of tools, including the contributions of large number of citizen scientists looking at SDSS images of galaxies at the Galaxy Zoo (www.galaxyzoo.org) and the new data coming from the MaNGA survey of SDSS-IV (https://www.sdss.org/sdss-surveys/manga/). Karen is also one of the BBC’s “100 Women of 2014”, invited to share her thoughts and experiences as part of the BBC’s pledge to represent women better in their news reporting.

Dr. Masters accepting her award from the Rt Hon John Bercow MP, Speaker of the House of Commons, and Trui Hebbelink from Shell. 

For more information, see http://www.ras.org.uk/news-and-press/2527-dr-karen-masters-wins-women-of-the-future-award and www.bbc.com/news/world-29758792