Sergio León-Saval awarded Officer Cross of the Royal Order of Isabel la Católica


A/Prof Sergio León-Saval, SRAP-IEAP Honorary President, was awarded with the Officer Cross of the Royal Order of Isabel la Católica, a decoration from the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation that is bestowed upon Spanish or foreign citizens that have excelled in their merits and achievements, as well as in promoting the interests of Spain.

The Officer Cross of the Royal Order of Isabel la Católica is a distinction of Spain, instituted by King Ferdinand VII on March 14, 1815, with the name of Royal and American Order of Isabel la Católica, in order to “reward refined loyalty and merits contracted in favor of prosperity of those territories”.

In the words of Ambassador Moral Revilla, Sergio León-Saval “has excelled in his professional merits as one of Australia’s leading optics experts and researchers at the University of Sydney and also has contributed to the promotion of the image of Spain as a country of excellence in the field of research and science, making this one of his priorities since he arrived to Australia five years ago”.

 


Angel.Lopez-Sanchez

About Angel.Lopez-Sanchez

Dr Ángel R. López-Sánchez is an astrophysicist and science communicator working at the Australian Astronomical Optics (AAO) and the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the Macquarie University (MQ) in Sydney (NSW, Australia). His research is focused in the analysis of star formation phenomena in galaxies of the Local Universe, especially in dwarf starbursts and spiral galaxies, using multi-wavelength (UV, optical, IR, radio) data. He presented his PhD Thesis at University of La Laguna and the Instituto Astrofisica de Canarias (Spain) in 2006. In 2007 he joined CSIRO Astronomy & Space Science (Sydney) with a postdoctoral position. He then joined the AAO (formerly the Australian Astronomical Observatory) and MQ in 2011. In July 2018 he was appointed as Senior Lecturer at AAO-MQ. He has been providing instrument and observing support at the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT, Siding Spring Observatory, NSW) since 2011, being the instrument scientist of several instruments: the multi-fiber spectrograph 2dF+AAOmega and the near-infrared imager and spectrograph IRIS2. He also has large experience with integral-field spectroscopy (IFS), being a very active member of the SAMI collaboration at the AAT and part of the HECTOR Science Team. He currently is the Instrument Scientist of KOALA+AAOmega at the AAT, and leads the international astronomy survey "HI KOALA IFS Dwarf and irregular galaxy Survey" (Hi-KIDS), that is getting unique, high-quality IFS data of a sample of 100 nearby dwarf and irregular galaxies for which 21cm H I interferometric data is available He has large experience teaching undergraduate and PhD students and giving lectures and classes about Astronomy. Dr. López-Sánchez is passionate science communicator who continuously gives talks and public lectures, writes popular science articles and organizes science communication events and stargazing activities. He is very active in social media, his Twitter feed is @El_Lobo_Rayado.