Dr. James Gillanders

My research focuses on examining observations of explosive transient phenomena, to determine the properties of their ejecta. 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, and observe, new and exciting transient events (incl., ATLAS, Pan-STARRS, ENGRAVE, ePESSTO+). I am the Visualisation Coordinator and a core member of the TARDIS collaboration, the open-science radiative transfer spectral synthesis code.