Fanaroff was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, to parents of Latvian and Lithuanian Jewish origins, and attended Northview High School. He completed a BSc.Hons in 1970 at the University of the Witwatersrand and a PhD in Radio Astronomy from the University of Cambridge in 1974. While working on his PhD, in collaboration with British astronomer Julia Riley, he made a breakthrough in the classification of radio galaxies known as the Fanaroff–Riley classification, which is used to classify radio galaxies based on the radio luminosity of their emissions.
Career and research
After completing his PhD, Fanaroff returned to South Africa and lectured in Astronomy at WITS for two years. He resigned from the university at the end of 1976 to work as an organizer for the Metal and Allied Workers Union. He became involved in labour unionism, became a trade unionist and served as the national secretary for the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa. He joined the government as a Deputy Director-General in the Office of President Nelson Mandela from 1994–1999. He served as head of the Office for the Reconstruction and Development Programme; Deputy director-general of the Department of Safety and Security ; Chair of the integrated Justice System Board and Steering Committee for Border Control. In May 2010 he was appointed a Non-executive director of Eskom. In 2003 Fanaroff was appointed the Project Director of South Africa's Square Kilometre Array bid, a position he held until his retirement in 2015, although he still continued on in an advisory capacity. Early on Fanaroff realised that the Karoo region in which the SKA is to be located has a shortage of qualified teachers for mathematics and science. To overcome this problem and to supply the project with future skilled South African scientists, engineers and artisans Fanaroff and his colleagues established an artisan training centre as part of a Human Capital Development programme and instituted a programme to bring qualified teachers to the local schools.
Honours and awards
2012 Ambassador of the Year by the Cape Chamber of Business and Die Burger
2017 Karl G. Jansky Lectureship for "exceptional contributions to radio astronomy and his unparalleled leadership through public service..." and in particular for his work with the South African Square Kilometer Array Radio Telescope Project.
