Astronomy Australia Limited (AAL) is delighted to announce that Dr Alexander Cooke will join the company as Chief Executive Officer, commencing on 6 January 2025.  

Dr Cooke successfully navigated a highly competitive recruitment process led by AAL Board Chair, Prof Orsola De Marco. Prof De Marco noted, “The most important job of the Board of any company is the appointment of the CEO. Through a range of networking avenues, social media, and general advertising, we generated significant interest for the role of AAL’s CEO. This resulted in lots of conversations with many well qualified individuals and a number of very strong applications.”

Regarding the successful candidate, Prof De Marco said, “Dr Cooke will be an important asset to AAL and for the astronomy community in general. His extensive experience working across the public sector on science, technology and innovation issues, and particularly on astronomy, will be invaluable at this key moment in time for the sector”.

Over 20 years, Dr Cooke has been instrumental in facilitating the delivery of high impact science at scale, including major science initiatives on behalf of the Australian Government. He is presently supporting the establishment of the Australian Government’s Strategic Examination of R&D (SERD), and leading delivery of the International Conference on Research Infrastructure (ICRI) 2024 which Australia is hosting in December in partnership with the European Commission.  

Dr Cooke led CSIRO’s Missions Program which aimed to deliver large-scale collaborative research with national and international partners to solve societal challenges. From 2017-2020, Dr Cooke was Australia’s Science Counsellor for the Department of Industry, Science and Resources (DISR), where he advanced the nation’s interests on science, technology and industry matters. He engaged regularly with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Observatory, advocating for Australia’s interests with key astronomy stakeholders across the European Union.

AAL’s out-going CEO, Mr Mark McAuley, said “After almost eighteen years of leading AAL, I am delighted to pass the reins to Dr Cooke. I cannot think of a better person to engage with Australian Government Departments, industry groups, and with other key stakeholders to ensure Australia continues to achieve significant benefits in the science and technology sectors from the Australian Government’s investments into astronomy.”

Prof De Marco added, “On behalf of the AAL Board, and the astronomy community in general, I wish to extend my thanks to Mark for his leadership of AAL since it was established. Mark has left a lasting impression on Australia’s engagement with astronomy, and I am delighted that he will take on the role of AAL Senior Advisor during 2025.”

Background on AAL

AAL serves as the peak body for Australian astronomy research infrastructure, helping the community fulfil its collective goals as determined in the Decadal Plan for Australian Astronomy. Since its inception in 2007, AAL has worked to ensure that Australian astronomy is world leading and publicly valued. It has achieved its goals through facilitating access for Australian-based astronomers to the best research infrastructure. 

AAL manages the astronomy component of the Australian Government’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) program, and supports other initiatives related to national research infrastructure. This includes access for Australian scientists to the facilities of ESO, currently enabled via a ten-year partnership agreement that the Australian Government entered into in 2017 as the first step towards becoming a full member, while supporting other initiatives across Australia in radio and gravitational wave astronomy.

Please contact Prof Orsola De Marco if you have any questions related to this announcement.