Ödman is an Associate Professor at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Trained in physics at EPFL in Switzerland, she holds a PhD in cosmology from Cambridge University, UK. After a Marie Curie research fellowship in Italy, she became the first international project manager of Universe Awareness, an early childhood development programme centered around the inspirational aspects of astronomy. She joined the South African Astronomical Observatory as a SKA Research Fellow working at the interface between astronomy and technology, which she continues, as a founding member of the ".astronomy" conference series. She was Director of Academic Development for the Next Einstein Initiative before joining a financial technology start-up as Chief Scientist. There she set up a data science and analytics pipeline. In 2018, she joined the Inter-University Institute for Data-Intensive Astronomy as Associate Director, Development, and Outreach. Her work has earned her numerous awards, including an International Astronomical Union Special Award for Astronomy Outreach, Development, and Education (2018), Mail & Guardian Top 200 Young South Africans (2014), Bilan Magazine 300 most influential of Switzerland – the category under the 40s (2013), and American Association for the Advancement of Science Prize for Online Resources in Education (2010).
