Dr. James Gillanders

I am an Astrophysics postdoctoral researcher working at the University of Oxford. My research focusses on examining observations of explosive transients, to determine the properties of their ejected material. Specifically, I am interested in analysing and interpreting observations of kilonovae (produced by binary neutron star mergers), and how their spectroscopic signals can be probed for evidence of the production of many of the heaviest elements in the Universe (e.g. platinum, gold, uranium). I work within multiple international collaborations, that actively search for, or follow up, new and exciting transient events (ATLAS, Pan-STARRS, ENGRAVE, ePESSTO+). I am the Visualisation Coordinator and a core member of the TARDIS collaboration, the radiative transfer spectral synthesis code used to model supernovae and kilonovae.