Edward L Gomez

Edward Leocadio Gomez is a Welsh astronomer at Las Cumbres Observatory working at Cardiff University as an honorary lecturer. He specialises in astronomy education. In 2020 he was awarded the Lise Meitner Medal by the Institute of Physics for his work in astronomy education. He chairs the IAU Office of Astronomy for Development's task force for children and schools, and in 2021 was elected as Vice-President of the IAU's Division C for Education, Outreach and Heritage. Through his role in Las Cumbres Observatory, Gomez started the Global Sky Partners program, which aims to inspire and enthuse school age audiences in science by pursuing science investigations using robotic telescopes. Gomez has sought to inspire young audiences using science through Universe in the Classroom (the welsh node of Universe Awareness) and Ada's Adventures in Science, a series of science comic books. Gomez is fan of the UK science fiction series Doctor Who and regularly gives public talks which mix science and cultural references to science fiction.
== Career ==
After completing his PhD in Cardiff University, Wales, Gomez joined Faulkes Telescope Project in 2004 as operations manager, working with the education team. In 2008 he was appointed the education director for Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO) and honorary lecturer at School of Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University. Gomez is a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and was appointed a Fellow of the IOP in 2020. In 2021 he was elected as Vice-President of IAU's Division C which is concerned with Education, Outreach and Heritage.
Starting in 2008 Gomez focussed LCO's education program on providing online resources, in anticipation of the LCO network being realised (first light for version 1. of the LCO network came in 2012). These started with the video series "Teapots from Space" for the International Year of Astronomy in 2009.
Gomez contacted several celebrities via Twitter to take part in live Twitter broadcasts while using 2 of the LCO robotic telescopes (Faulkes Telescope North and Faulkes Telescope South) during 2011 and 2012. These "Show Me Stars" events were highly successful as they were endorsed by comedians Dara O Briain and Jon Culshaw, and TV amateur astronomer Mark Thompson.
Since 2017 Gomez has run the Global Sky Partners program for LCO, which annually uses 1000 hours of time on the LCO 0.4-meter telescopes, and is exclusively for educational use.
Gomez has developed educational tools such as the web application Star in a Box and citizen science projects like Asteroid Tracker. 
He is vice-president of Division C of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), focusing on education, outreach, and heritage. Gomez regularly delivers public talks, workshops, and conference presentations to promote astronomy education and engages with the public as a media commentator, including appearances on BBC Radio Wales's Science Cafe. 
He is also a member of the core team for the podcast Science or Fiction, discussing diverse scientific topics.
=== Awards ===
* 2020 IOP Lise Meitner Silver Medal
* 2014 Scientix 1st Prize{{cite web |url=https://medium.com/@iauastroedu/iau-astroedu-honoured-with-science-education-award-95437e356d50 |title=IAU astroEDU Honoured with Science Education Award |accessdate=30 July 2021
== Public outreach ==
With Finnish artist Laura Sorvala, in 2017 Gomez developed the comic book series "Ada's Adventures in Science". These aim to inspire young people to believe in their abilities, by following the adventures of the stories' protagonist, Ada Jenkins. Gomez and Sorvala had a successful Kickstarter campaign in early 2018 to fund the printing and posting of these comics around the globe. As a result Ada's Adventures were published in 4 languages and 15,000 copies were distributed around the world
Category:Welsh astronomers