SARAO News

Dr Khadija El Bouchefry is a Research Fellow at the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO) and is excited most by being an astronomer, being in South Africa, and the anticipation of the wonders that will be uncovered by the MeerKAT radio telescope.

She is also excited when helping students, motivating them and inspiring them to reach their full potential.

Khadija grew up in Marrakech, Morocco and has always been keen on discovering and learning new things. She has always done well in Mathematics and Physics since childhood and so it was only natural for her to continue practicing these subjects beyond high school.

Khadija first moved to South Africa in 2003 as part of the first group of students who was affiliated with the African Institute for Mathematical Science (AIMS). She then enrolled for her PhD at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) in 2004 and graduated in 2009. Thereafter she completed two postdoctoral fellowships: two years at UKZN and one year at UNISA before joining HartRAO.

Khadija’s work interests are in Multi-Wavelength Astronomy, Radio Astronomy, Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) and star formation, Data Mining and Virtual Observatories, Machine Learning techniques and its application in Astronomy.

Her future aspirations include becoming well established scientifically and to venture into overlapping projects between SKA and HartRAO.