Professor Michele Dougherty CBE FRS FRAS is Executive Chair, Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) which is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).  As well as leading STFC, Michele leads UKRI’s Space and Research Infrastructure activities.

Michele is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Professor of Space Physics at Imperial College. She led unmanned exploratory missions to Saturn and Jupiter, was Principal Investigator of the magnetometer instrument onboard the Cassini mission to Saturn and is Principal Investigator of the magnetometer for the European Space Agency's JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) that launched in April 2023.

Michele has been recipient of several awards during her career, including a CBE, a Royal Astronomical Society Geophysics Gold medal and the Institute of Physics Richard Glazebrook Gold Medal and Prize.  In July 2025, she was also appointed as the United Kingdom’s first female Astronomer Royal.

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