Dr Sheila Kanani

Dr Sheila Kanani MBE is a planetary scientist, EDI consultant, space educator and author, with a background in astrophysics and astronomy research from UK universities. She regularly acts as a science ambassador, visiting schools and speaking at events, and is an advocate for diversity in physics and astronomy.

Sheila runs her company Her Place For Space from home, and enjoys walking on her local beach with her family of boys, playing sports, gazing at the stars, reading and eating. Her favourite planet is Saturn.

She was appointed MBE in the 2022 New Year’s Honours List for services to astronomy and diversity in physics. She is the author of several books including Can You Get Rainbows in Space?; the 2024 World Book Day title Can You Get Jellyfish in Space?; Mission to Mars (published by DK in collaboration with the European Space Agency); and How to be an Astronaut and other Space Jobs.

Suggested Talks:

The Fate of the Universe: From the Big Bang to the end of our Universe, in this talk Sheila examines where we are in the universe, how we can work out where it all started, and how it is going to end.

The Lifecycle of Stars: In this talk, Sheila brings her expertise to the topic of stars, focussing on the birth, life, and death of stars like our Sun, and those much more massive, including black holes.

Other planets and the chance of aliens: How we detect planets outside of our solar system and what is the likelihood of finding intelligent life elsewhere? Sheila examines these questions and others in this talk.