Jubilee Birthday Honour for UCLan astronomy lecturer Megan Argo

The senior lecturer at UCLan has been awarded the BEM (British Empire Medal) in the Queen’s Jubilee Birthday Honours for services to girlguiding during the Covid pandemic.

The astrophysicist hosted 42 virtual planetarium shows from her home, helping more than 1,200 young women and girls learn more about astronomy and space.

Her citation notes that for brownies and guides across the country she became “an inspiring role model and ambassador for science.”

It continues: “She recruited a small team of colleagues to meet demand in order to deliver many more shows, reaching an astonishing thousands of girls ages five to 16.”

A delighted Megan said: “It’s incredible. I’d no idea I had been nominated. It’s quite amazing to think people have appreciated what I did for the Brownies during the pandemic.”

The content of her special talks included views of the current night sky, a look at how to navigate using the stars, the Greek legend of Andromeda and Perseus, a look at how other cultures see the stars and a virtual grand tour of the planets.

In her day job Megan studies galaxies, supernovae and black holes at high resolution using large networks of radio telescopes. A well-regarded science communicator she can be seen on the news discussing space developments and taking part in public lectures and school workshops.

In total Megan and her colleagues from the the UCLan’s Jeremiah Horrocks Institute (JHI) for Mathematics, Physics and Astronomy, spoke to Rainbow, Brownie, Guide and Ranger units all over the country and their audience even inlcuded Girl Scouts in California.

Now Megan has volunteered to be a Guiding unit leader. She said: “I'm humbled to have been honoured for my volunteering work with Girlguiding, helping Brownies to earn their space interest badges during the pandemic. Girlguiding is an organisation that provided me with many amazing opportunities when I was younger, making some life-long friends along the way. I love being able to pay some of that back, and I hope the young people I speak to get as much from their involvement with Girlguiding as I did.”