Interview with Olga Bayandina

We spoke with Olga Bayandina, formerly a JIVE support scientist and a postdoctoral researcher in Italy, and now one of the VLBI experts at SKA-Mid in South Africa, with many valuable stops along the way. We asked her about her new role on the EVN PC, her involvement in the SKAO Science Meeting in Görlitz, and her experience as a young woman scientist. As expected, we had a lot to discuss.

As one of the VLBI experts in the SKAO team, what are the key scientific or technical challenges you're currently focusing on? How do you see the prospects for SKA-VLBI and what role do you see yourself playing in building that synergy?

Since the SKA telescopes are still under construction, most of our current challenges are technical. Of course we look to the sky and keep science as our guiding star, but right now the day-to-day work is very down toEarth, and we are focused on making sure every piece—hardware, software, and operations—comes together smoothly. For VLBI, there’s an extra layer, you can’t do it alone. We need to be on the same page with telescopes all over the world while we’re still in the process of writing our own page.

One particularly exciting frontier is VLBI with SKA-Low in Australia. That frequency range is relatively new territory for VLBI, and we’re excited to be part of the ongoing technical and scientific exploration. Whatever the final configuration looks like, the SKA telescopes’ sensitivity will open the door to discoveries we simply couldn’t make before.

Beyond the technology, SKA-Mid’s presence in South Africa is already inspiring fresh momentum for the African VLBI Network. While still in its early stages, it has the potential to open new avenues for collaboration and to encourage young scientists to engage with research that could, in time, help shape the future of astronomy on the continent.

As for my role, I find myself in an interesting position: on one hand, I’m a scientist eager to do all kinds of challenging science with SKA-VLBI as soon as possible. On the other hand, I’m also part of the telescope team, very aware of the technical milestones still ahead, and sometimes (most of the time, really) I have to rein in that impatient inner scientist. But I want to stress that I’m a scientist first, and I’ll keep advocating for VLBI to be a key SKA capability and to be delivered as soon as possible.

You recently joined the EVN Programme Committee (PC). Could you tell us what this role involves and what excites you most about contributing in this capacity?

Yes, I’ve only recently joined the EVN Programme Committee, and it’s truly an honour to help evaluate proposals for one of the world’s leading radio astronomy instruments. The role involves a lot of reading, learning, and expanding my own knowledge about the science and what it takes to write a strong proposal.

Since joining, I’ve developed a kind of checklist of the things I pay most attention to. For me, the most important is, of course, the study’s goal — it should be clear and consistent throughout the proposal. Another key point is the target sample: I expect the choice of target sources to be discussed, and if possible, it’s better to start with a smaller test sample before requesting a large allocation of telescope time. I also encourage proposers (especially early-career scientists) to check archival data before submitting, it’s a step that surprisingly often gets overlooked.

There are many other aspects we consider, and I’m happy to discuss proposal writing with anyone who’s curious (feel free to contact me). At the end of the day, I’m really grateful for the opportunity to learn from the creativity of others and to help ensure that every proposal is reviewed with care and respect for the effort behind it.

The SKA Science Meeting is a major event for the community. What was your role and what did you find most rewarding about the experience?

While I wasn’t one of the main organisers of the SKAO Science Meeting, it was such a large and complex event that everyone at the SKAO had a role to play. The organising committees carried the heaviest load —and did a tremendous job! But many others, myself included, contributed in different ways that were essentialto making the meeting a success.

For me, the most enjoyable part was preparing the materials for the conference. We spent months developing presentations that were shared during the event. My first degree was “teacher of physics”, and the mostvaluable thing that training gave me was the ability to explain complex ideas simply, make intricate theories engaging, and capture people’s attention. I loved using those skills here: creating materials that would present the SKAO’s vision and plans in the clearest, most appealing way possible, and help spark excitement for the observatory’s future.

It was also personally rewarding because I had only recently joined SKAO, and preparing these materials was a perfect way to immerse myself in the project. They became both my own introduction to the organisation and a polished, accessible resource for the wider community. I’m grateful for the experience, not only for the insight it gave me, but for the opportunity to contribute to outreach and help showcase the extraordinary science and collaboration that the SKA telescopes will make possible.

From JIVE to SKA-Mid in South Africa. How has your experience as a support scientist at JIVE shaped or informed your current work with SKAO?

The position of support scientist at JIVE was a real turning point in my career and I feel very lucky to have had that opportunity. It was my first international job, so it came with the challenge of adjusting to a completely new environment, but it was equally rewarding because of how much I learned.

I always recommend the support scientist role at JIVE to early-career colleagues because it teaches you every step of a scientific project, from writing proposals to scheduling and conducting observations to interferometric data reduction. You get to see not just what every telescope user sees, but also the “behind-the-scenes”: integration of new antennas and receivers, test observations, checking schedules for challenging observations, data correlation, data quality checks, and more. The experience also gave me insight into work culture and managing a scientific facility. Overall, JIVE serves as a launchpad for some of the best VLBI and radiointerferometry scientists.

As I transitioned to SKAO, all that knowledge has been invaluable. In my current role as an SKA-Mid Operations Scientist, we need to anticipate how a large astronomical facility will function, even before the telescope exists, and JIVE prepared me perfectly for that.

JIVE wasn’t my first postdoc, nor was it my last, and I’m grateful for all my previous positions, but the support scientist role was a clear turning point, opening doors and giving me skills I continue to rely on today.

Do you feel that the landscape for early-career researchers, especially women in STEM, has changed over the past few years? If so, in what ways?

Things have definitely changed and for the better. While women are still underrepresented in science and girls remain a minority in STEM, the statistics are steadily improving. The biggest shift I see is that many girls now truly understand they can be whatever they want to be. When I was a child, I genuinely thought I couldn’t be an engineer (my dream career at the time) simply because I was a girl.

I’m proud of the new generation and their no-nonsense attitude. They have far more access to information, and it’s much harder to tell them what they “can’t” do. That said, building a career in science still requires a lot of privilege, and for girls, that threshold is frequently even higher. Unfortunately, in some places we’re seeingattempts to roll back progress, and one of the first signs is renewed efforts to limit women’s rights. I often remind girls that if someone is fighting against you, it means you have power.

One of my main goals in my career is to use education as a way to open doors, to give more people, especially those from underrepresented or oppressed backgrounds, a chance to look at the stars. This is one of the reasons I love VLBI: it’s a technique that can’t be done in isolation — it demands global collaboration to achieve groundbreaking science. I also love projects like the SKA, so ambitious that they bring togethercountries from around the world to work for a shared goal. I hope that in the future more women will be in leading roles, including as heads of government, and that these leaders will choose to look to the stars and a bright future.