Bernie Fanaroff’s biography, fact, career, awards, net worth and life story

Bernard Lewis Fanaroff FRS (born 1947) is a South African astronomer and trade unionist. He served in many positions in the South African government related to labour unionism from 1994 to 2015. He is the co-developer of the Fanaroff–Riley classification, a method of classifying radio galaxies. He was the Project Director of South Africa’s Square Kilometre Array bid.

Education and early life

Fanaroff was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, to parents of Latvian and Lithuanian Jewish origins, and attended Northview High School. He completed a BSc.Hons (Physics) in 1970 at the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS) and a PhD in Radio Astronomy from the University of Cambridge in 1974. While working on his PhD, in collaboration with British astronomer Julia Riley, he made a breakthrough in the classification of radio galaxies known as the Fanaroff–Riley classification, which is used to classify radio galaxies based on the radio luminosity of their emissions.

Career and research

After completing his PhD, Fanaroff returned to South Africa and lectured in Astronomy at WITS for two years. He resigned from the university at the end of 1976 to work as an organizer for the Metal and Allied Workers Union. He became involved in labour unionism, became a trade unionist and served as the national secretary for the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa. He joined the government as a Deputy Director-General in the Office of President Nelson Mandela from 1994–1999. He served as head of the Office for the Reconstruction and Development Programme; Deputy director-general of the Department of Safety and Security (1997-2000); Chair of the integrated Justice System Board and Steering Committee for Border Control. In May 2010 he was appointed a Non-executive director of Eskom.

In 2003 Fanaroff was appointed the Project Director of South Africa’s Square Kilometre Array (SKA) bid, a position he held until his retirement in 2015, although he still continued on in an advisory capacity.
Early on Fanaroff realised that the Karoo region in which the SKA is to be located has a shortage of qualified teachers for mathematics and science. To overcome this problem and to supply the project with future skilled South African scientists, engineers and artisans Fanaroff and his colleagues established an artisan training centre as part of a Human Capital Development programme and instituted a programme to bring qualified teachers to the local schools.

Honours and awards

• 2012 Ambassador of the Year by the Cape Chamber of Business and Die Burger
• 2013 The Order of Mapungubwe: Silver
• 2017 Karl G. Jansky Lectureship for “exceptional contributions to radio astronomy and his unparalleled leadership through public service…” and in particular for his work with the South African Square Kilometer Array Radio Telescope Project (SKA).
• 2017 Science for Society Gold Medal from the Academy of Science of South Africa
• 2018 Lifetime achievement award by the National Research Foundation
• 2019 Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS)
• Visiting professor in physics at the University of Oxford
• Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society
• Member of the International Astronomical Union
• Founder member of the Academy of Science of South Africa
• Board member of the South African National Biodiversity Institute
• Honorary doctorates from six South African Universities, including Rhodes University, the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN)