Research at the IoA covers a wide range of astrophysics, from the formation of planets to the beginning of the Universe itself. Below are some short descriptions of what our academic staff are currently working on.
Prof. Vasily Belokurov
Vasily's work explores the structure and evolution of galaxies, with a particular focus on the Milky Way, our home galaxy. He uses survey instruments, including the Gaia satellite, and the large 'Sloan Digital Sky Survey', to search for interesting structures (like streams of stars) inside our Galaxy. These structures provide important information about the history of the Milky Way.
Prof Anthony Challinor
Anthony's research involves studying the 'Cosmic Microwave Background' (CMB), the ancient remains of the first light that ever traveled through the Universe. By observing the CMB we are looking back to a time when the Universe was around 380,000 years old -- just 0.002% of its current age. By studying the ripples and patterns in the CMB, Anthony's work allows us to better understand the age, shape, and properties of the Universe as a whole.
Prof Cathie J Clarke
Cathie studies 'protoplanetary discs' -- nascent Solar Systems in the process of forming around newborn stars. Protoplanetary discs are rings of gas and dust that will one day (after many millions of years) turn into planets. In particular, Cathie works on the way these protoplanetary discs can be affected by the environment around them. Any young stars nearby can bathe a protoplanetary disc in high-energy radiation, heating the gas and dust and changing the way these baby Solar Systems behave.
Prof Miles Cranmer
Prof Wyn Evans
Dr Anastasia Fialkov
Anastasia's work explores some of the earliest epochs of cosmic history when the very first stars started to form. She is currently focusing on the epoch known as 'Cosmic Dawn' -- the period in the Universe's history more than 13.5 billion years in the past (just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang) when the first stars were born. She builds models of the Universe at these early times and explores observable signals from telescopes that, one day, could tell us more about our baby Universe.
Prof Martin Haehnelt
Martin's work involves studying distant galaxies and their central supermassive black holes -- known as 'quasars'. His work uses both telescopes and computer simulations to understand how galaxies form along with these black holes in the early Universe. He also uses the light from these galaxies to study the wispy, faint material that exists in the spaces between galaxies, known as the Inter-Galactic Medium. Just as shining a torch through a dusty room can illuminate the cobwebs, the light from these distant quasars can reveal the overall structure of our Universe.
Prof Paul C Hewett
Paul works on a broad range of topics, from the local Universe (studying the structure of our own Galaxy), to distant galaxies and quasars, with a particular focus on applying statistical tools to very large data sets (which can include millions of galaxies or black holes). His current projects include studying the gas surrounding galaxies, hoping to better understand how galaxies form stars and grow over cosmic time.
Prof Nikku Madhusudhan (Madhu)
Madhu's research focusses on 'exoplanets' -- planets outside our own Solar System. He uses both theory and observation to understand the way exoplanets are formed and the conditions inside them. He also works to understand the atmospheres of exoplanets, hoping to better understand the conditions which lead to life. In recent years he has published several papers on 'hycean worlds' (with 'hycean' being a portmanteau of hydrogen-ocean) -- planets which have a liquid water ocean under a hydrogen atmosphere.
Prof Kaisey Mandel
Kaisey's work lies at the interface of astrophysics and statistics. His astrophysical research involves 'supernova cosmology' -- in other words, using exploding stars (supernovas) to tell us about the overall behaviour of the Universe. By looking at enough exploding stars, for example, it is possible to measure how fast the Universe is expanding. These datasets can be very complex -- using statistics, along with techniques like machine learning, can help us better understand what our telescopes see.
Prof Richard G McMahon
Dr Christopher Moore
Christopher's research covers black holes, gravitational waves and relativistic astrophysics. Christopher's research combines theory, advanced data analysis techniques, and the most recent observation data to understand the role played by gravity in shaping the universe we observe. Much of Christopher's research centres on around binary black hole mergers and how the gravitational wave signals they produce can be used to test fundamental physics beyond Einstein's theory of general relativity.