Menu Close
ARC Postdoctoral Fellow, Sydney Institute for Astronomy, University of Sydney

I am a high energy astrophysicist presently employed as an Australian Research Council (ARC) Postdoctoral Fellow (APD) at the University of Sydney, Australia. My particular area of expertise is in the area of X-ray astronomy, making me one of only a handful of X-ray astronomers in Australia. My research in general covers multi-wavelength studies of accrerting compact objects, chiefly utilising data from various space based X-ray observatories including XMM-Newton, Chandra, RXTE, Swift and INTEGRAL. My current research is focussed on the search for the illusive class of intermediate mass black holes with masses between ~100 - 100,000 Solar masses. Presently, the bulk of my work involves multi-wavelength observations (using world class facilities including the Hubble, Gemini, VLT, EVLA, and ATCA telescopes) of the strongest candidate intermediate mass black hole HLX-1 in the galaxy ESO 243-49.

Other research projects that I am leading include hunting for new candidate intermediate mass black holes in dwarf galaxies (using archival X-ray data such as the 2XMM catalogue), searching for new hyper-luminous X-ray sources such as HLX-1 (through both targeted observing campaigns and data mining of catalogues), and understanding the nature of the class of ultra-luminous X-ray sources through population studies utilising multi-wavelength data. I am also involved with the planned VAST and EMU radio surveys using the ASKAP telescope, and am an affiliate of the ARC Centre of Excellence in All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO).

From 2009 - 2010 I was employed as a Catalogue Scientist for the XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre (SSC) at the University of Leicester, UK. From 2007 - 2008 I held a position as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre d'Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements (CESR) in Toulouse, France. I completed my PhD at the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy (UNSW@ADFA) in January 2007. I obtained Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering with Honours and Bachelor of Science (Physics) undergraduate degrees from the University of Newcastle, Australia, in 2000 and 2001 respectively.

Experience

  • –present
    ARC Postdoctoral Fellow, Sydney Institute for Astronomy, University of Sydney

Education

  • 2007 
    UNSW@ADFA, PhD/Astronomy