Professor Renée Hložek

As a Member of the Schmidt Science Fellows Academic Council, Dr. Renée Hložek will support the growing Fellowship community by providing tailored and focused mentoring to active Fellows. 

Renée is currently Associate Professor of Astrophysics at the Dunlap Institute and the David. A. Dunlap Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto. Her research interests focus on understanding what the Universe is made of, its structure, and how it is changing over time. She combines theoretical cosmology with observational data from Atacama Cosmology Telescope, the Simons Observatory, currently under construction in Northern Chile, and will be integrating data from the upcoming Vera Rubin Observatory.

Renée studied mathematics at the Universities of Pretoria and Cape Town in South Africa before pursuing her PhD in astrophysics as a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford. She moved to Princeton University as a Lyman Spitzer Jr. Postdoctoral fellow ahead of moving to the University of Toronto. She is also a CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar and was recently awarded the University of Toronto’s McLean Award and the Harvey B. Richer Gold Medal for Early Career Research in astronomy by the Canadian Astronomical Society (CASCA). Renée is a Sloan Research Fellow and a TED Senior Fellow having spoken at several successful TED events.

Renée has a strong commitment to mentoring, having mentored at the Supernova Foundation Mentoring Programme inspiring and supporting young women pursuing scientific careers. She co-founded the Hope Scholarship to support South African women in STEM, and co-runs her departmental mentoring program at the University of Toronto. She is passionate about mentoring as a way to improve diversity within the sciences.