Draft:Rafael Bachiller

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Rafael Bachiller García (Madrid, 1957) is a Spanish astronomer and science communicator, member of the Royal Academy of Doctors of Spain and director of the National Astronomical Observatory and of the Royal Observatory of Madrid (IGN, Ministry of Transports). He is secretary of the National Commission of Astronomy and Spanish delegate in the boards of directors of international institutions such as the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the Institute of Millimetre Radioastronomy (IRAM) and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), among others.

Biography
Rafael Bachiller received his PhD in Physics from the Joseph Fourier University of Grenoble (France) and from the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). He is a specialist in the study of star formation and planetary nebulae, on which he has published numerous academic papers and popular articles. As a researcher, he is known for the discovery of young solar protostars and the localization and characterization of molecular gas in planetary nebulae. Bachiller has also participated in the development of large astronomical facilities, such as the Yebes Observatory, the IRAM Observatories, the Herschel Space Telescope, ALMA, or the SKA radio telescope.

Bachiller is also recognized as a science communicator, and has received several awards in this field. He regularly contributes outreach articles to different media, and is a member of the editorial board of the newspaper El Mundo, He has published several books, such as Astronomía: De Galileo a los telescopios espaciales (Lunwerg, 2009) or El universo improbable (La Esfera de los Libros, 2019). With a foreword by paleontologist Juan Luis Arsuaga, the latter addresses the origin and evolution of the universe, the nature of time, the structure of matter, runaway stars, or gravitational waves.

Awards
Throughout his career, Bachiller has received numerous awards for his research and dissemination work. Among them, the award for excellence "Gabriel Alonso de Herrera" in the Research and Innovation Awards of Castilla-La Mancha 2010, the honorable mention in the Física en Acción contest, or the prize for the best collaborative project in astronomy awarded jointly by the Spanish and French Societies of Astronomy.

In 2017, Bachiller was awarded the José María Savirón Prize in recognition of his career in popularizing science. In 2020, he received the special jury's recognition in the Prismas 2019 award. That same year, he received the award from the Siglo Futuro Foundation. In 2023, the Spanish National Research Council and BBVA foundation awarded Rafael Bachiller the science communication prize under the category of researcher.