Stars in her eyes, feet on ground
The EU awarded R86 million to help with the infrastructure, writes Nabeelah Shaikh
MEET Tracy Cheetham, 40, the woman managing one of the world’s most ambitious scientific projects ever funded.
As the general manager of infrastructure and site operations at the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), Cheetham has a vital role to play in the building of the world’s largest radio telescope based in the Karoo.
SKA will build the telescope in Africa and Australia which is set to be 50 times more sensitive than any existing radio telescope.
According to Cheetham, the scale of the SKA represents a huge leap forward in engineering, research and development towards building and delivering a radio telescope, and will deliver a correspondingly transformational increase in science capability when operational.
“The SKA hopes to understand how stars and galaxies formed, and how they evolved over time – what the so-called ‘dark-matter’ is, how magnetic fields formed and evolved in the universe and how they influence astrophysical processes, to investigate the validity of Einstein’s theory of relativity, and perhaps detect life elsewhere in the universe,” she said.
Cheetham was appointed as the SKA SA infrastructure manager in 2007 and subsequently became the SKA SA general manager: infrastructure and site operations and consortium leader for the Infra SA Consortium in 2013.
Cheetham studied at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University where she obtained a degree in architecture and then completed her master’s thesis on inner city revitalisation in Port Elizabeth.
“My responsibilities include leading the design, construction, operations and maintenance of the infrastructure and power for the Karoo Radio Astronomy Observatory which includes the SKA pathfinder called MeerKAT,” she said.
She is also responsible for leading the Infra SA Consortium that is responsible for the design of the infrastructure and power required for SKA1_MID which is the first phase of the SKA and includes an additional 133 antennas in the Karoo.
Cheetham is proud to be a leading South African woman in the field of science, technology, engineering and construction and to lead a young, dynamic and enthusiastic team who are working on the design of the infrastructure and power for the first phase of the SKA.
“I hope that I can be a role model to other young African women to encourage them to pursue a career in the field of science, technology and engineering, as women are the greatest resource any country can have to contribute to its development.
“There are huge opportunities for women to become involved in the science and engineering environment through mega-infrastructure projects like the SKA and it would be really great to see an increase in these numbers,” she said.
Proud of SKA’s achievements thus far, Cheetham said that SKA was recently awarded € 5 million (R86m) from the EU’s research and innovation programme, Horizon 2020, to further advance some of its detailed design activities.
The EU-allocated funding of € 5m will help support the detailed design of the infrastructure required at the two SKA co-host sites – the Murchison region of Western Australia and the Karoo region of South Africa – and adds to the € 150m invested in SKA preconstruction activities by the SKA member countries.
The Infra SA Consortium has been allocated € 2.25m (more than R38m) of the total.
Cheetham said SKA had placed SA in the global spotlight.
“The joint award of the SKA site bid to Africa has created the opportunity for largescale investment into South Africa and our eight African partner countries.
“It has resulted in a change in international perceptions of SA which is now becoming a destination for high-tech investment. This development of the KAT 7 and MeerKAT radio telescope has changed us from consumers of science to developers of technology and science.
“Through the SKA, Africa is fast becoming the “next great business destination” in conjunction with the “technology and science destination” in the world,” said Cheetham.
Having to lead SKA keeps Cheetham on her toes.
“I am single but married to my work. My only ‘child’ is my dog, Chivas. My position requires me to travel internationally and locally frequently and, given the work load and pressures, I think it would be very difficult to manage both a family and my job. I am normally in the office by 6am as this is the best time of the day to get some work done.
“There are no defined hours when working on a project like the SKA and the pace of the project requires long hours. What I can say though, is it is never a lonely job as I am supported by an excellent team of dedicated people.
“There is hardly time to stop and think – we always seem to be on the run,” said Cheetham. But she tries to lead a balanced life.
“Play normally includes golf on Saturdays, enjoying a good bottle of red wine with my friends in Pretoria, playing the cello now and then, fulfilling my bucket list of international travel destinations and spending time at home doing odd jobs, and entertaining my dog.
“I also love adventures which include sky-diving, bridge-swinging, shark-cage diving, hot air ballooning and white water rafting,” she said.