Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1535901
7 gozotoday | FRIDAY • 30 MAY 2025 CULTURE Dwejra: of land, sea, and sky WIRT Għawdex will hold the sixth in its series of talks for 2025 on Friday, the 6 June at 6:30pm at St Cecilia Chapel, Għajn- sielem. The talk by Prof. Joseph Caruana, which will be delivered in English, will focus on Dwejra. Dwejra is a gem of the Mal- tese Islands — a time-capsule of geological history, a showcase ofecological adaptation, and a window unto our home galaxy (the Milky Way) and the Uni- verse at large. This lecture will guide participants through Dwe- jra's geological and human histo- ry, uncovering some of the site's lesser known wonders along the way. Beginning with a tour of its terrestrial features — geological, ecological and archaeological — we will then explore its under- water marvels, before broadening our view to the cosmic perspec- tive afforded by its dark skies. The session will conclude with an overview of the challenges and threats facing this unique site, and the vital role every citizen can play its conservation. The speaker is an astrophys- icist at the University of Malta and President of Wirt Għawdex. Fascinated by Dwejra since a very young age, he has conducted sci- entific studies of the site, includ- ing its underwater geomorphol- ogy and night sky. He has long been an advocate for the pres- ervation of Dwejra and its dark skies, and maintains a dedicated website (www.dwejra.net). Caruana read for a joint hon- ours B.Sc. in physics and mathe- matics at the University of Malta (UM). Following this, he carried out his doctoral research at the Department of Physics of the University of Oxford, where he read for a DPhil in astrophysics as a Marie Curie research fel- low in a network associated with the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope NIRSpec instrument. At Christ Church, Oxford, he tutored General Rel- ativity and Cosmolo- gy. In 2012 he moved to Berlin, taking up a postdoctoral research position in astrophys- ics at the Leibniz- Institut für Astro- physik (AIP) in Pots- dam, as a member of the Galaxies & Quasars group and the MUSE Consortium. In 2016 he joined the Department of Physics and the Institute of Space Sciences and Astronomy (ISSA) at UM, where he lectures on optics, astrophysics and cos- mology, and the philosophy of science. His main research interests encompass the early universe, galaxy for- mation & e v o l u t i o n , galactic dy- namics, and the history of a s t r o n o m y . At UM he in- itiated a light pollution re- search group, leading an ongoing night sky brightness monitoring ef- fort, with a par- ticular focus on light pollution's effects upon the environment, ecology, and human health. He is also interested in the application of statistical methods and math- ematical models to hyperbaric medicine. Caruana is a fellow of the Roy- al Astronomical Society, and a member of the European Astro- nomical Society and the Inter- national Astronomical Union (IAU). Since 2021 he has been serving as President of Wirt Għawdex. After the talk there will be time for questions from the audi- ence and discussion. APS Bank is sponsoring our series of talks while Delicata Winery are kindly sponsoring the events' post-talk drinks. The event on Face- book can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/ events/1876610853139669. Wirt Għawdex is a voluntary non-governmental organisation founded in 1981 with the aims of fostering the knowledge of our heritage amongst all levels of society and to strive to safe- guard the natural, archaeologi- cal, historical and anthropolog- ical patrimony of the islands of