Gaia People

Catherine Turon

Observatoire de Paris-Meudon

Astronomer at the Paris Observatory (Meudon site), Catherine Turon works in the field of galactic structure and dynamics. Team leader of one of the four Consortia in charge of the scientific aspects of the Hipparcos mission, the Hipparcos Input Catalogue, she has been recipient of the silver medal of the french CNRS in 1991 and of the first ESA Director of Science Medal in 1999 (together with J. Kovalevsky, L. Lindegren and E. Høg). Among other responsibilities, she has been the vice-president of the Paris Observatory and chairwoman of the ESA Astronomy Working Group.

Strong and enthusiastic supporter of Gaia when the mission was proposed, involved in its scientific outlook and in the CU6 spectroscopic data processing, she is now leader of the Action Spécifique Gaia, coordinating the french scientific participation to Gaia. Catherine is also The head coordinator of the ELSA final conference "Gaia: at the frontiers of astrometry", next June 7-11.

[Published: 08/04/2010]