I am delighted to share that I have been named one of the winners of the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology Quantum Pitch Competition.
The competition was organised by Physics Magazine in partnership with Physics World and held during the 2025 World Conference of Science Journalists in Pretoria, South Africa. It invited journalists to find compelling stories connecting quantum science with the wider world.
My winning pitch became “Galaxies Wind Around a Cosmic Filament,” a feature published by Physics Magazine on 9 February 2026. I received the award alongside Zimbabwean journalist Mkhululi Chimoio. You can read the official announcement from Physics Magazine.
The story began with a question that sounded almost impossible: what if some of the largest structures in the Universe are not simply expanding, but rotating?
Astronomers had found evidence that galaxies inside a cosmic filament stretching more than 50 million light-years were moving in a coordinated pattern. Galaxies on one side appeared to be travelling towards us, while those on the other side were moving away. Together, the observations suggested that the entire filament could be rotating around its central axis.
The scale of that possibility fascinated me. But what made the story especially suitable for a quantum science competition was how the motion had been detected.
The researchers used observations from South Africa’s MeerKAT radio telescope to study radiation emitted by neutral hydrogen. Inside a hydrogen atom, the electron and proton can change their relative spin orientation. This tiny quantum transition releases a photon with a wavelength of 21 centimetres.
By measuring small shifts in this signal, astronomers could calculate the movement of hydrogen-rich galaxies across an enormous cosmic structure. In other words, a change occurring inside individual atoms helped researchers investigate motion on a scale of tens of millions of light-years.
That connection became the heart of my pitch: the smallest measurable changes in matter helping us understand some of the largest structures in existence.
Writing the story required me to move carefully between quantum physics, radio astronomy and cosmology. My formal scientific training is in cell biology and genetics, so this was outside the field in which I originally trained. That is also one of the things I value most about science journalism. It allows me to enter unfamiliar fields, ask questions without pretending to know everything and work with researchers to make complex ideas meaningful to a wider audience.
Quantum science can be especially challenging to communicate. The concepts are often abstract, while the language can become highly technical very quickly. The task is not merely to simplify the science. It is to identify the central idea, preserve its accuracy and give readers a reason to care.
For this story, that reason extended beyond the physics.
MeerKAT made these observations possible. Located in South Africa’s Karoo region, the telescope is one of the world’s most powerful radio-astronomy instruments. Its success reflects years of investment not only in hardware, but also in African researchers, engineers, postgraduate students and scientific institutions.
Too often, Africa appears in international science stories mainly as a source of samples, data or research subjects. MeerKAT offers a different narrative. It shows African infrastructure and expertise contributing directly to frontier science and changing how humanity understands the Universe.
This award therefore means more to me than recognition for a single pitch. It reinforces my belief that African science journalists can tell globally significant stories without separating international scientific discovery from the places, people and institutions that make it possible.
I am grateful to the editors at Physics Magazine for selecting the pitch and for the thoughtful editorial process that transformed the original idea into a published feature. I am also grateful to the scientists who gave their time, explained their work and helped me understand both the excitement of the finding and the caution required when interpreting it.
The rotating filament remains a single observed system. More evidence will be needed to determine whether this motion is common across the cosmic web or an unusual feature of one structure. That uncertainty is part of what makes the research exciting. Science advances not only through definitive answers, but through observations that open new questions.
Winning the Quantum Pitch Competition has encouraged me to continue seeking stories at the intersections of disciplines, scales and societies. It has also reminded me that complex science becomes most powerful when people can see how it connects to their world.
Sometimes, understanding the motion of the Universe begins with listening to the faint quantum echoes of a hydrogen atom.
