Summary
I am an observational astronomer, studying how galaxies evolve over billions of years.
I was born and raised in Melbourne’s southeastern suburbs. My interest in astronomy began as a child, when the Voyager spacecraft visited the outer planets. I undertook my undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the University of Melbourne during the 1990s. For my PhD, I used (now antiquated) photographic plates to identify thousands of galaxies and measure their distribution in space.
In 2000 I joined the staff of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, and started working on surveys of the distant Universe with large ground-based telescopes and satellites. In 2004 I was awarded Princeton University’s Henry Norris Russell Fellowship, and studied the growth of the most massive galaxies. Using thousands of galaxies in the constellation of Bootes, I found that the most massive galaxies have grown slowly over the past seven billion years, which is almost certainly due to mergers of galaxies.
Since 2007 I have been at Monash University’s School of Physics, and am currently an ARC Future Fellow. I am now using large astronomical surveys to understand how galaxies grow and reside within structures of dark matter. This will allow me to understand why galaxies evolve rather than just describing how galaxies evolve.
Experience
- ARC Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer, Monash University 2011 – present
- Lecturer, Monash University 2007 – 2010
- H.N. Russell Fellow, Princeton University 2004 – 2006
- Research Associate, National Optical Astronomy Observatory 2000 – 2004
Education
- University of Melbourne, PhD/Astronomy, 2001
- University of Melbourne, MSc/Astronomy, 1996
- University of Melbourne, BSc(hons)/Physics, 1994
Research Areas
- Astronomical And Space Sciences (0201)
- Cosmology And Extragalactic Astronomy (020103)