Growing up in a small town in northern Argentina, Julio Navarro would sleep outside on the patio with his family after days in which the temperature hit 45 C.

As a young boy he would wake in the night to watch the star-filled sky.

“The patterns changed all the time, sometimes here and there, but changes in a clockwork fashion. I thought it was fascinating,” said Navarro.

Now an astrophysicist at the University of Victoria, he attributes those nights on the patio with instilling in him a love for the stars. He went on to receive a PhD at Harvard University and did post-doctoral work at Cambridge University in England before being hired at UVic in 1998.

In November he will head to Ottawa with UVic geologist Dante Canil to be inducted into the Royal Society of Canada.

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