Professor Mario Santos is an A1 NRF-rated researcher and holder of the SARChI Chair in Cosmology with Multi-Wavelength Data at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), where he also serves as Director of the Centre for Radio Astronomy. He obtained a Master’s degree in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in Physics from the University of Oxford. His A1-rating recognises his world-leading contributions to cosmology using radio telescopes. He is the Principal Investigator of the MeerKLASS project, currently the largest observing project on MeerKAT, a leading radio telescope and precursor instrument for the international Square Kilometre Array (SKA). Since 2013, Prof Santos has developed the science and research team underpinning MeerKAT cosmology. Under his leadership, MeerKLASS has developed the first data pipeline for radio cosmology, enabling the first detections of the cosmological signal. This groundbreaking work is essential for cosmology with the SKA and supports South Africa’s leadership in this field.