JOCELYN Bell Burnell has been awarded the Grand Medaille of the French Academy of Sciences.
The astrophysicist from Co Armagh is the 2018 recipient of the prestigious honour awarded annually to a researcher who has had a profound effect on the development of science.
Ms Bell Burnell is a visiting professor at Oxford University and her postgraduate work resulted in the discovery of pulsars and a Nobel Prize for her supervisor.
She is regarded as having made one of the greatest astronomical discoveries of the 20th century.
Originally from Lurgan, the physicist is the former dean of science at University of Bath and the current chancellor of Glasgow University.
She is a former president of the Royal Astronomical Association and of the Institute of Physic and her love of astonomy dates back to her architect father's work on the construction of Armagh Planetarium.
