Lo­cal As­tronomer Dr Shirin Haque is pleased that more Caribbean girls are do­ing bet­ter in the area of Sci­ence.

Dr Haque is the 2020 win­ner of the An­tho­ny N Sab­ga Caribbean Award for Ex­cel­lence in the area of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew Dr Haque said it is an emo­tion­al and hum­bling ex­pe­ri­ence in be­ing cho­sen for the award.

She said while it has al­ways been tough for women in Sci­ence, the Caribbean is show­ing great promise.

She said it’s fan­tas­tic that in the Caribbean girls are do­ing bet­ter in Sci­ence.

“And they have ac­tu­al­ly been pro­gress­ing well so we just have to keep the mo­men­tum up and we can keep do­ing great things.”

Dr Haque ex­plained that world­wide there are 13,000 as­tronomers and on­ly 20 per cent of those are women.

As she gets ready to ac­cept the award she does so on be­half of all women in her field.

“It’s al­most like it’s on be­half of women in sci­ence.”

Dr Haque is al­so a se­nior lec­tur­er, for­mer deputy dean and for­mer head of the De­part­ment of Physics, at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine.

She is the first and on­ly woman to head the de­part­ment to date.

In 2018 she al­so be­came the first woman to be award­ed the pres­ti­gious CARI­COM Sci­ence Award.

Dr Haque will re­ceive her An­tho­ny N Sab­ga Caribbean Award for Ex­cel­lence in the area of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Fri­day.