Research Interests
I am the Wetton Professor of Astrophysics at Oxford and from 1st January 2023 will be the Director of the Hintze Centre for Astrophysical Surveys.
I work on processing data from several large sky survey projects. One of them, the ATLAS project is a network of 4 telescopes, funded by NASA which can scan the whole visible sky every 24hrs. We process the data in real time, linking discoveries to galaxy and star catalogues and trigger ESO and other facilities for multi-wavelength follow-up. I work on preparation for the Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time and have a scientific leadership role in the UK's Lasair project. With colleagues at Queen's and the University of Hawaii I search for the electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational wave sources, mostly from merging neutron stars. We use the Pan-STARRS twin telescope system and then the ESO telescopes for follow-up. I was one of the founding members of ENGRAVE which is a European wide effort to optimise the use of the VLT and ESO facilities for follow-up of the optical and near-infrared emission from gravitational wave sources. I sit on the Rubin Observatory's Science Advisory Committee, the Virgo-EGO Science and Technology Advisory Committee and the Royal Society's Schools Partnerships grant panel.
My team search for kilonovae and fast transients in wide field optical survey data. We apply models to multi-wavelength follow-up data to probe the physics and origins of the explosions and mergers detected in the transient survey data.