Fiona Vincent
I was brought up in Edinburgh, and I studied astronomy at the University of St.Andrews, as an undergraduate and a postgraduate. I have done a variety of jobs, including a spell with the BBC World Service in London. From 1982 to 1994 I held the post of City Astronomer in Dundee, looking after the Mills Observatory, which at the time was Britain’s only full-time public observatory.
I am now an honorary member of staff at St.Andrews University, in the School of Physics and Astronomy. My chief research interest has been in asteroids and other small solar-system objects. From 1996 to 2003 I was an active member of the team taking the St.Andrews mobile planetarium on trips to schools, during which time I presented nearly 200 shows. In addition, I provided monthly details about What’s in the Sky; I no longer update this site every month, but it still contains general information about the apparent behaviour of the sun, moon and stars. In February 1998, I gave a short series of lectures on “Positional Astronomy” for second-year students at St.Andrews University; the notes I prepared for these lectures now apparently offer one of the main sources of such information on the Internet.
I have acted as Tutor, or as Study Adviser, on several astronomy courses for the Open University; currently I tutor the third-level course on Astrophysics, which includes a remote-observing project at the Observatori Astronomic de Mallorca. In 2007 I started training as a keep-fit teacher with Medau Movement, and I now lead a weekly exercise class for older women in St.Andrews.
I live in St.Andrews with my colleague Roger Stapleton, and a black-and-white cat. And I share my name with a starship.
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Page last modified 2015 January 26th.
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