Dr Amanda Weltman: Cosmologist

Dr Amanda Weltman (30) has made it her life’s mission to know how the universe works – and if her award for Best Emerging Young Scientist is anything to go by, she’s more than on her way.

After completing her honours in theoretical physics at UCT, Weltman did a PhD in Physics at Columbia University and received fellowships from Columbia, Cambridge and NASA before returning to Cape Town.

‘Cosmology is the study of the history of the universe. It’s like looking at a photograph of an old man and being able to tell what he looked like at birth.’

Amanda says that she can’t always tell how or when practical applications for what she’s working on will come about, but she’s sure they will.

‘When scientists were working on magnetism and electricity in the 1600s they weren’t thinking of the MRI, yet centuries later their “theory” is used daily in hospitals around the world.’

Weltman thinks that SA has the potential to become one of the leading countries in the field. ‘UCT has some of the world’s best cosmologists – and we have a clear, unpolluted night sky.’

As one of SA’s few ‘hardcore’ female scientists, she believes that we ‘need girls to be encouraged – they can no longer be taught to believe that it’s a boy’s field’.