Australia Telescope National Facility, CSIRO
Qualifications
1999-2003 PhD, Jodrell Bank Observatory, University of Manchester
1995-1999 MPhys I (hons), Physics with astrophysics, University of Manchester
Research experience
2008+ QEII research fellow, Australia Telescope National Facility
2005-2008 Research scientist, postdoctoral fellowship, Australia Telescope National Facility
2002-2005 Bolton post-doctoral fellow, Australia Telescope National Facility
1999 NFRA, Dwingeloo - summer vacation research position
1998 CERN, Geneva - summer vacation research position
1997 Jodrell Bank Observatory - vacation research position
1996 VEGA group PLC: Space systems engineering - summer vacation position
Awards
2007 Australian Research Council QEII fellowship
2002 Australia Telescope National Facility Bolton Fellow
1999 University of Manchester, Samuel Bright Research Scholarship
1997 University of Manchester, Moseley physics prize
1996 University of Manchester, Heigenbottom exhibition award
1996 University of Manchester, Academic achievement award
Committees
2007+ Local scientific liason committee for ASKAP
2006-2009 Australia Telscope Users' committee
Computing skills
Programming languages: C, C++, Fortran, PERL, HTML, JAVA, PHP, various scripting langauges
Operating systems: Linux, solaris, MacOS, Windows, DOS
Overview
I am an expert in a number of diverse areas of pulsar astronomy. Since the start of my PhD in the year 2000, I have produced 13 first-author publications and co-authored more than 50 articles. These include one Science paper and one Nature paper. For my PhD, I worked as part of the Parkes Multibeam Pulsar Survey team which found more than 750 pulsars (doubling the number known). In 2004 an associated survey detected the first double pulsar system. I was involved in using this exciting system to produce the most stringent limits yet placed on the validity of the general theory of relativity in the strong field limit. My research has given me a strong interest and grounding in the technique known as pulsar timing with which we hope to detect gravitational waves (GWs). My knowledge of this technique has already led to highly cited publications on subjects as varied as the pulsar birth velocity distribution, the alignment of pulsar spin axes with magnetic axes, properties of the interstellar medium and on pulsar rotational irregularities.
I am now a leading member of the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA) project. The main aim of this project is to observe millisecond pulsars with the highest possible timing precision in order to detect GW signals. To date, I have been either the first or second author on all the refereed papers that have come from the project. Specific aspects that I have led include: 1) development of the most powerful pulsar timing software package (tempo2), 2) analysis of the expected GW signature in our data and determination of the number of pulsars (and observations) required for the project and 3) design of our data-processing and archiving procedures. I am currently also the project scientist for the new wide-band digital filterbank system which will further improve our ability to time pulsars. I work extensively with researchers in Australia, the UK, Italy, the USA and Canada and with these collaborators I recently placed the most stringent limits to date of the existence of low-frequency gravitational waves.
Further interests
Music: I have been the principal 'cellist in many orchestras. I have been the founder member of many string quartets and other chamber groups. I regularly perform on the 'cello or piano. For fun, I also play the viola, tenor recorder and am learning the quena.
Language: I have basic knowledge of French and German and rudimentary knowledge of Urdu. I have recently started to learn Italian.
Sport: I enjoy hiking, snorkelling and table tennis.