Rare polar ring galaxy is 'one of the most spectacular' astronomers have ever seen
Astronomers discovered an ultra-rare spiral galaxy with a ring of hydrogen swirling around its poles.
Baerbel Koribalski
Senior research scientist, CSIRO
Baerbel Koribalski is a senior research scientist at CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science and an Adjunct Professor at Western Sydney University. She studies the formation and evolution of galaxies, galaxy groups and clusters, searching for new features and making discoveries along the way. When times allows, she also creates 3D fly-through visualisation of galaxies.
Baerbel studied physics at the University of Bonn in Germany and moved to Sydney in 1993 to join CSIRO's Australia Telescope National Facility. She leads the "Local Volume HI Survey" (LVHIS), investigating about hundred nearby galaxies with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). In 2009 she initiated an all sky HI 21-cm survey to be conducted with the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) and build an international team of over 100 researchers. In 2012 she was awarded a prestigious 5-year CSIRO Science Leader fellowship.
