Merieme Chadid

Merieme Chadid was the first female astronomer to set foot in Antarctica. In 1998, she installed the world’s largest telescope in the Atacama Desert in Chile. In 2002 she became a public official, as an astronomer at the Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur and the International Union of Astronomers. In 2006, she led an expedition to the South Pole to set up a large observatory there. First woman on this territory, and first Moroccan person, she planted the Moroccan flag there. She subsequently became a national treasure.