“Many telescopes are located on indigenous lands, with a poor population”

Jessica Dempsey, director of the radio astronomy institute ASTRON in Dwingeloo, is going beyond her brief. She is committed to inclusivity, sustainability and ethics. ‘I don’t see them as extras, but as essential parts of my job.’

You can’t deny Jessica Dempsey is fearless. After a short career as a professional actress, she became the first Australian woman in Antarctica, where she helped build a robotic telescope. As deputy director of the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii, she engaged in dialogue with the local population, who had been protesting for a long time against the gigantic Thirty Meter Telscope that was to be built on the sacred mountain Mauna Kea – an issue that has not yet been resolved.

So the fact that she was appointed director of ASTRON in 2022 meant that the organisation was ready to make some changes. One of her first goals was to equalise the male-female ratio, which is already bearing fruit in the workforce two and a half years later. In 2023, she became professor of Ethics in Astronomy in Nijmegen, where she lectures on various themes: inclusivity, ethics, sustainability and leadership. Issues for which she is explicitly committed and is also a visible advocate internationally.

You could get away with focusing only on the scientific activities of your institute. Why do you take on so many other matters?

(Laughing:) Glutton for punishment? I cannot and will not passively stand by and watch an injustice stand unchallenged. A friend once said to me: ‘Jess, you can’t rescue every puppy from the shelter.’ And I said: ‘Yes, I can! I don’t believe you!’ I have no illusion that I can solve everything, but I won’t stand on the sidelines.

Moreover, I don’t see these issues as extras, but as essential parts of my job. A sustainable organization incurs lower costs. An inclusive work culture ensures longer-term employee retention. Attention to ethics prevents blunders and crises. They all contribute to a healthy organization.

During the protests of the local population in Hawaii, you were not on the sidelines, but rather represented the party that – in their eyes – was responsible for the injustice.

I was one of the most hated people in Hawaii. I got through that time with the mantra: ‘be brave, be kind, be wise.’ What struck me was the blinding lack of attention to ethics from my colleagues. Astronomers were not used to being seen as the bad guys. They had never thought about their privileged position on an island with a history of poverty and a people who had been displaced. In the beginning, I lived in that same bubble. When the crisis broke out, it became clear that they lacked the skills needed to do so. Astronomers had never learned how to deal with ethical dilemmas, they had no ethical roadmap.

Could you help them [to better understand this]?

I had a ‘crying corner’ in my office where one astronomer after another collapsed into a state of total, existential despair. I remember a young researcher who came in, dazed. His car, on which he had stuck an astronomy sticker, had been tampered with a car key. ‘This is not why I studied astronomy,’ he sobbed.

I said to him: ‘It’s true that what you’re feeling right now is not nice, but imagine having had this feeling every day of your life. That’s the reality for people who have been driven from their original homes. The fact that you’re only having this feeling for the first time after 35 years is a privilege. So cry about it once, but otherwise see it as a bad day at work. See your feelings in relation to what’s going on on this island. And then get your head in the game.’

Are there other places in the world where a situation like Hawaii is at risk of happening?

Eighty percent of the world’s leading telescopes are built in countries other than the ones that fund them. The vast majority of them are also located on indigenous lands with poor populations. Newcomers should be more aware of the impact this has on these communities and strive for mutual understanding, connection and cooperation. With new projects, such as the Square Kilometer Array in South Africa and the Africa Millimetre Telscope in Namibia, it is important that we pay close attention to this from the start. Fortunately, there are promising initiatives, but it depends on a continuous succession of leadership that oversees this.

At Astron, you were presented with a brand new ethical dilemma: the Westerbork radio telescope. The telescope is outdated and the destination of the site of the old transit camp is disputed.

I am doing everything I can to navigate this situation ethically. In Hawaii, I already had to balance spiritual and scientific interests, but here it is even more complicated: the meaning of Westerbork has changed over the years. The telescopes were once built to erase a pitch-black association. Now a new generation wants something that does remind us of the war. Finally, astronomy also has a place here, it is one of the last radio-silent zones in Western Europe where we can still listen to the universe. I feel called to find a way to illuminate these two truths in a respectful and sensitive way.

Sustainability is also on your agenda. You call on astronomers to look at their ecological footprint. At first glance you would say that they are not the worst polluters.

Many astronomers absolve themselves of ethical responsibility. They think: ‘we look at the stars, we don’t have to concern ourselves with those other things.’ That is the ethical compass of many astronomers in a nutshell. I find the idea that you would not influence the world or people arrogant. Moreover, the footprint of astronomy is not small. New observatories, led by radio telescopes, produce a huge amount of data. In the coming years, this data flow will grow exponentially, resulting in enormous energy consumption.

Scientists should take a leading role in this: climate change will have a technical solution and that will not come from a party that primarily wants to make money. In recent years, a study was published by astronomers who calculated the carbon footprint of large observatories. That makes the problem quantitative and invites awareness.

Have these studies already had a concrete effect?

A life cycle analysis was carried out for the LOFAR radio telescope, an example that was followed by scientists from the Square Kilometre Array, the future largest radio telescope in the world. We have just received 3 million euros from NWO to implement the first R-ladder approach – a step-by-step plan for sustainability – in our project management at Astron. I am going to hire a sustainability engineer, the first of its kind.

Do you expect the next generation of astronomers to behave more sustainably?

For the young people I speak to, sustainability is the highest priority. Many feel a deep despair and hopelessness about the future. I want to help them get past that fear and make problems manageable, by focusing on feasible solutions. In doing so, I place the responsibility with institutions and governments, not with individual scientists. I hope that PhD students will demand that telescopes become climate neutral, without being punished for their individual ecological footprint.

Do you think they can simply enforce this change?

There are many examples of movements that failed to do this. The Civil Rights Movement, MeToo, Black Lives Matter… They all started with broad support, after which a silent majority threw them back further than where they started. A shining example was Nelson Mandela. After a long, necessary struggle, he sought sincere cooperation with the people who had imprisoned him for 23 years. This man could have burned South Africa to ashes if he had wanted to. But he understood that real, lasting change is only possible with the consent of those in power.

Buy-in at the top is crucial: committed leaders who dare to make courageous decisions. That is why I have chosen my path, from this position I can make more impact. I still cannot save every puppy, but I can save more than before. And my mantra has become more realistic: ‘They won’t thank you, they probably won’t remember you, and it probably won’t work. But I’m doing it anyway.’

What kind of leader do you want to be?

An effective leader. And the only truly effective leader is someone who makes themselves unnecessary. That is why I am now training the people around me to take over my role. A new group of passionate, ethical, fierce and ferocious scientists, technicians and engineers will take over, so that I can say: fantastic, I’m pulling out. You got this.

Jessica Dempsey (1978) studied Theatre and Film Studies and Astrophysics in Sydney. After a short career as a professional actor, she worked as an astronomer in Antarctica for four years. From 2007 she worked in Hawaii as deputy director of the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope on Mauna Kea. Since 2022 she is director of ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy. In 2023 she was appointed as special professor of Ethics in Astronomy at Radboud University Nijmegen.