Speaker
Description
The South African scientific collaboration with CERN (SA-CERN), celebrating more than 15 years of partnership, has built a broad footprint of world-class research and financial support for students to participate in the LHC endeavours, as well as outreach via the International Masterclasses. Other public engagement activities in South Africa are highlighted, such as Phenomenal Physics at the University of Cape Town, showcasing live demonstrations to 300 learners, and screenings of the film Particle Fever at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), followed by a live Q&A with featured CERN physicists connecting online. Beyond South Africa, the HEP community is active across the continent: the biennial African School of Physics (ASP) offers a rich programme of both talks and hands-on sessions, and Masterclasses are organised in countries including Kenya and Morocco. During a science festival in the DRC, a booth introduced CERN and the LHC to 10,000 learners from Kinshasa and surrounding areas. In Kenya, the 2-day Sisters Science Safari engages young women to pursue their passion for STEM, while an educational muon detector, MERCI, was built and demonstrated for the first time during ASP 2026. The presentation will offer insights on how to pursue African HEP public engagement, as well as how to get involved.
