Welcome to my personal webpage!

I am astrophysicist, working as postdoc for the Murchison Widefield Array Epoch of Reionisation team at ICRAR/Curtin. Currently, my work is focused on characterising the ionosphere with the MWA. Most of my experience in radio astronomy comes from the Australia Telescope Compact Array; with its fantastic new correlator, we are able to conduct powerful observations in efficient times. My PhD utilises this potential in the MALT-45 project. See the research and publications pages for more details.

When I’m not studying, I enjoy learning new programming languages. Haskell holds my fascination at the moment. Another pastime is Project Euler. When I’m not being productive with my time, I like to play video games and watch dramatic film.

Background

Before I studied astrophysics in my PhD degree, I completed a joint engineering-science degree, majoring in electrical engineering and mathematics. My attraction to astronomy stems from our limited overall knowledge; it’s fascinating to think that so much of the natural universe still dwells within the realm of “magic”. Radio astronomy constantly pushes the reach of our technology, and I’m glad to be helping that push.

During my PhD I have acquired many hours of teaching, mostly through tutoring undergraduate classes in engineering. More recently, I have been working part-time as a contract observer for IVS at the University of Tasmania.

I have spent a considerable amount of time with computers, particularly Linux systems, and have experience with a variety of programming languages. Ruby is a personal favourite, being easy to read and write for efficient scripting of tasks. A variety of software project I have developed can be seen on my GitHub page.