Jessica Chapman is a Vice President of CCA.
Jessica grew up and studied in the UK where she completed a PhD in radio astronomy in 1985. She came to Australia in 1987 and has worked for many years for CSIRO as a research scientist, manager and project leader. She has carried out research on the evolution of stars and has many research publications.
Jessica has also held senior management roles for the CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF). The ATNF provides world-class radio astronomy observatories that are used by astronomers from around the world to study the universe. She has led and worked with many individuals who contributed a wide range of skills, from engineers and scientists to technicians, administrators and support staff.
Jessica has a strong interest in providing user-friendly services and has led several projects to develop web-based software applications for astronomers. From 2011 to 2016 she was the Project Leader for a major project to develop a big-data archive. This holds vast amounts of science data taken with the Australian SKA Pathfinder telescope array in Western Australia.
Jessica retired from paid employment in late 2016 and is now an Honorary Fellow at CSIRO. She has two adult children and two young grandchildren.