A PhD Student from the UNIGE Observatory Honoured for Her Work to Bring Astronomy to All
Laura Ramírez Galeano, a PhD student at the Department of Astronomy at the University of Geneva, has just been awarded the 2025 Europlanet Prize for Public Engagement. Together with Natalia Oliveros, she represents RECA Educación, a Colombian network of young astronomy enthusiasts whose mission is to make science accessible to everyone, including the most remote communities in Colombia.
The award, worth €1000, was presented during the opening ceremony of the major international conference EPSC-DPS2025, in Helsinki. It was an opportunity for Laura and Natalia to share the story and achievements of their collective with the global scientific community.
Founded in 2012, the Red de Estudiantes Colombianos en Astronomía (RECA) is a volunteer-led association that connects students and researchers around a common goal: to strengthen the role of astronomy in Colombia and build bridges between early-career scientists at home and abroad. Since 2021, its educational branch, RECA Educación, has multiplied its outreach projects: school talks, drawing contests, sky observation workshops, and the BARCO programme, which brings astronomy directly to rural communities.
Today, RECA already reaches hundreds of schools across all 32 Colombian regions. Despite limited resources, its members constantly devise creative and accessible formats, from storytelling sessions to simple classroom experiments. Their motto is clear: science is not a privilege, it’s a right.
Upon receiving the prize, Laura Ramírez Galeano expressed her gratitude:
“We are truly honoured to receive the Europlanet Prize for Public Engagement 2025. It brings us great joy and motivation to know that our efforts to bring astronomy and planetary science to underserved and often overlooked communities are appreciated at such a level.”
With Europlanet’s support, RECA now plans to distribute Salomé, an educational comic that introduces children to exoplanets and the scientific method in a fun, story-driven format, to schools across Colombia. Complementary workshops and teacher training sessions will also be developed to ensure the comic becomes a lasting educational tool. The Salomé project is an initiative born within the Geneva Observatory and which has already won over more than 60,000 students across French-speaking Switzerland.
Link to the Europlanet website with Laura Ramírez Galeano’s presentation at the conference: https://www.europlanet.org/europlanet-prize-for-public-engagement-2025-awarded-to-reca-educacion/