Welcome!

I am a radio astronomer and astrophysicist, and a staff Assistant Scientist at National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Socorro, NM.

I work on the evolution of radio galaxies, understood as both growth of their structures during their lifetime and as cosmological evolution of their population, and the impact they have on the evolution of galaxies and the Universe as a whole. I am interested in the physics of the relativistic jets, the environments of radio galaxies and aspects of kinetic AGN feedback. In my methods I use semi-analytical models, numerical simulations (the ol' good Monte Carlo family), advanced statistics and vast observational data.

I am heavily involved in delivering low frequency radio surveys from the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) pathfinders and precursors. I am a Project Manager for the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) all-sky radio continuum survey, the Evolutionary Map of the Universe (EMU), a core team member of the low frequency Galactic and Extragalactic All-Sky MWA (GLEAM) survey, and a science team member of an international citizen science project, the Radio Galaxy Zoo.

For more information on my research, science interests and projects I lead or am involved in, follow links above to Research and About Me.


News

August 2019

Recently I was asked to interview for Active Galactic Videos run by the University of Arizona students. Our day long trip to VLA resulted in two videos I feature in: Peering into Black Holes and What Even is Radio Astronomy? And don't forget to check out the Active Galactic YouTube channel too for all the fascinating astro videos they create!


February 2019

Every now and then I receive Alumni News from my doctoral Alma Mater, the University of Southampton, and this time I stumbled across a very unique, interesting and absolutely fantastic news piece: can you be a blind astrophysicist? Well, yes you can! And here is a living example (linked above). Of course, this wouldn't be a off-the-shelf career path, and I'm sure would require so much more work to make it happen; but it's possible. And that's a great thing.

I am currently a Socorro-local NRAO summer student coordinator, and NRAO does lead a special program for under-represented students, as well as those otherwise overlooked by traditional career pipeline in astronomy related fields. The program, National Astronomy Consortium, runs annually and is open to undergraduate students. I don't know on the spot what we'd have to do in the case of severely vision impaired students, but nothing is impossible! :)


March 2018

Socorro, NM. Arrived!


November 2017

Doing great science with citizen scientists via Radio Galaxy Zoo! Our paper on rare and still largely unexplored HyMoRS (Hybrid Morphology Radio Galaxies) is now out here. Check out also our RGZ blog post on this study. I will try to create and maintain a site and database specially for these radio galaxies. Hopefully useful for your research! Again, watch this space!


September 2017

You've been Jodcasted! A special edition of the University of Manchester podcast about star formation and the Universe is available here. Or you may want to directly jump to the interview where I was featured (it's 15 minutes long, but hopefully you'll enjoy it listening as much as I enjoyed discussing the science).


March 2017

Check out a press release on my very recent paper on radio observations of the archetypal star-burst galaxy NGC 253! Links to: press release and the journal paper. I will also write here a short piece on this research shortly - watch this space!


October 2016

GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky MWA Survey (GLEAM) Data Release 1 is now out!


February 2016

Way too early science has lost a great mind and an exceptional mentor to students, Dr Peter A Curran.


January 2015

`Advancing Astrophysics with the SKA: Science Book' (2015) is now in press, and will come out sometime this year, but some the chapters composing the updated SKA science case are out already now on arXiV! Chapters composing continuum science are collated here. And the chapter closest to my heart on Life cycles of radio galaxies is here. Enjoy!


January 2014

Radio Galaxy Zoo has launched!

An extension to the well known by now Galaxy Zoo, the Radio Galaxy Zoo - a quest for supermassive black holes, has launched just before Christmas. Beyond the main aim of matching and classifying radio and infrared sources, there is a RGZ Talk which has grown to great (and deep!) sizes - seriously, worth checking out! Try it yourself, spread the word and help the science!


August 2013

Next stop: Perth, Australia. Arrived.


May 2012

Australia and South Africa will share SKA!

[Nature News, SKA Project Office press release]


March 2012

You've been Jodcasted! The special LOFAR themed edition of the Jodcast, where I was also interviewed, is available here. Enjoy!





And now for something completely different....


APOD: Illusions - illustration of why you should not trust your brain, sometimes


February 2016

And the whole fuss about gravitational waves..


October 2011

2011 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Astronomers `for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae'.

Nobelprize.org