Michele Dougherty
British space scientist (born 1962)
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She was appointed to Executive Chair of the Science and Technology Facilities Council in September 2024, and was appointed Astronomer Royal in July 2025, making her the first woman in that office. She was elected to serve as President of the Institute of Physics from October 2025 but stepped down in January 2026 citing concerns of a conflict of interest with her role at STFC.
Early life and education
Michele Dougherty became interested in space when she was ten years old, when her father built a 10-inch telescope through which she saw the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Dougherty learnt no science at secondary school, as the one she attended, chosen because 'I thought, I want to go [to the same school] with my friends', did not teach science. Nonetheless, her ability at mathematics led to her admission to read for a science degree (which 'was like learning a new language') at the University of Natal in South Africa, where she was awarded a PhD degree in 1988 for research on wave-particle interactions in dispersive and anisotropic media.
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Career
Dougherty left South Africa for a fellowship in Germany, working on applied mathematics, before moving to Imperial College London in 1991. She was appointed a Professor of Space Physics in 2004 and teaches undergraduates alongside her research. She was head of the Department of Physics at Imperial College London from 2018 to 2024.
Dougherty is the principal investigator for two major space missions; the NASA Cassini spacecraft that orbited Saturn and the ESA JUICE spacecraft that will orbit Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede.
Dougherty's work led to the discovery of an atmosphere containing water and hydrocarbons around Saturn's moon Enceladus — opening up new possibilities in the search for extraterrestrial life.
Dougherty is distinguished by the Royal Society "for her scientific leadership of the international NASA-ESA-ASI Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and its moons". As principal investigator of the operation, data collection and analysis of observations from the magnetic field instrument on board the Cassini spacecraft, she strongly contributed to improve our understanding of Saturn and the Moons of Saturn. Dougherty cites the flybys of Saturn's moons as a highlight of her career; convincing the NASA spacecraft team to make a closer than usual approach “I watched the data coming back with my heart in my mouth because if we had messed up no one would have ever believed me again!".
Before working on the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft, Dougherty was involved in the magnetometer team for the Jupiter analysis of the Ulysses mission. She was also Guest Investigator on the NASA Jupiter System Data Analysis Program as part of the Galileo uncrewed spacecraft.
Dougherty regularly delivers public lectures and appears on national media. She was one of the guest scientists interviewed on Jim Al-Khalili's radio programme The Life Scientific.
In July 2025, Dougherty was appointed the UK's Astronomer Royal. She is the first woman in the post's 350-year history.