Dr. Kathryn McWilliams—a professor in the Department of Physics and Engineering—is the first Canadian to receive the honorary fellowship from the Royal Astronomical Society. (RAS)

The RAS is based in the United Kingdom and called McWilliams “an unquestioned international expert in the dynamics of field-aligned currents that link the solar wind, magnetosphere and ionosphere.”

McWilliams is also the director of SuperDARN Canada—the Canadian arm of an international project that uses radar to study the Earth’s upper atmosphere. She became involved with SuperDARN as a summer student in 1992, when she helped build the first radar site east of Saskatoon. SuperDARN Canada is based at the University of Saskatchewan’s Institute of Space and Atmospheric Studies.

As the head of SuperDARN Canada, she has led the development of a new radar system called Borealis that improves the capability and flexibility of the project’s radar stations. The new radars are already operating in Canada, while two international SuperDARN partners have begun upgrading to the Borealis system.

(Above Dr. Kathryn McWilliams— Photo credit: Chris Putnam, USASK)