Mathieu Isidro

FRAS, MCIPR, MA (Intercultural Communication)

A third-culture kid (TCK) raised between countries in a bilingual household, I'm a dual citizen: French of Spanish descent and Australian.

I've been a space & astronomy addict since childhood, spending nights outside looking up at the night sky with my small telescope. Not much has changed, except it's turned into a full-time job and the telescopes have gotten a whole lot bigger...A Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and Member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, I'm part of a global effort to build the world's largest radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array. My job? To tell its story.

My work, or rather my passion, has taken me to some incredible places, from the Chilean Atacama desert and its high plateaus in the Andes, to the sun-scorched Australian outback, remote South Africa, the snowy French Pyrenees, rural India in the monsoon and countryside England for some of the world's most challenging & exciting astronomy projects.

News-addicted, I'm of course passionate about all sciences, but also politics, international relations, cultures, languages and travel. I put the extensive time I spend in planes to good use by writing about astronomy, space and travel for my blog The Starlightwalker. You can also find me on Twitter and Instagram.

My philosophy: believe in your dreams, aim high, work hard, and live life to the fullest!

Photo: Dusk at the summit of Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii, 4200m above sea-level and above the clouds, looking over to the Keck telescope domes opening for a night of observations under a crystal-clear sky.