University of the Western Cape alumnus, Dr Raji Odutayo Rufai, has moved to Maryland in the USA – home to that country’s biggest group of scientists, engineers and technologists who “build spacecraft, instruments and new technology to study Earth, the sun, our solar system and the universe”.

Dr Rufai, who graduated in 2014 with a PhD in Space Physics at UWC, is set to start his postdoctoral fellowship at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre in November. He developed a research proposal on the analysis of broadband plasma waves in the Earth’s radiation belts.

“I am very excited to be given this opportunity to do research at one of the leading facilities for space research in the world. I am very grateful to the University of the Western Cape for the opportunity to study for a PhD and to my supervisor Professor Ramesh Bharuthram for his expert guidance, continuous support, and concern for my studies and my future career and also his collaborators at Indian Institute of Geomagnetism. I also thank the Department of Physics and Astronomy of UWC for the support,” said Dr Rufai.

The Goddard Space Flight centre is home to the Hubble operations and, according to its website, the centre manages “communications between mission control and orbiting astronauts aboard the International Space Station”.