Research Interests
- Assembly history of the Milky Way
- Late stages of stellar evolution & Planetary Nebulae
- Supernova cosmology & Supernova Alerts
- Exoplanet/ Host Star Connection
- Spatial Molecular Profiling
- H = 85 (as of Jul 2025)
- Further details for publications - see ADS (astronomy), Pubmed (medical) or Google Scholar pages
Projects
Director of CamCEAD (Cambridge Centre of Excellence in Astronomical Data) within which a number of key data projects are undertaken by the team of over 30 astronomers, data scientists and software engineers.
- ESA Gaia
- Member of ESA Gaia Science Team (2007- to date)
- Chair of the COST Action CA18104 / MW-Gaia (2019 - 2023)
- Lead of the UK Gaia project (2021 - to date)
- Lead Proposer of the EU MW-Gaia Doctoral Network (2023 - 2027)
- Lead of IoA team in the GENIUS programme (2013-2017)
- Coordinator of the GREAT Marie Curie Initial Training Network (2011-2015)
- Chair of the GREAT ESF Research Network Programme (2010-2015)
- Wide Field Spectroscopy
- WEAVE: Member of the Science Team, core group Galactic Archaelogy Survey, core group SCIP, PI of the core data processing and PI of the Cambridge participation
- 4MOST: Member of the 4MOST STSC, member of Galactic survey teams S1, S3, lead of the Data Management System and IoA 4MOST Local Manager
- MOONS: Member of the Science Team, lead of the IoA pipeline development team
- ESA PLATO
- Lead of the Exoplanet Analysis System development team,
- Member PDC-Exec.
- ESA CHEOPS:
- Lead of the IoA/Cambridge consortium participation,
- UK CHEOPS Board member.
- LSST
- Member of the LSST Stars, Milky Way & Local Volume Science Collaboration
- Initiated the LSST@Europe conference series
- ESA Euclid
- Lead of IoA Cambridge Euclid team in the Euclid Ground Segment: OU-VIS
- Member of the Euclid SN Science Working Group
- GaiaNIR
- Lead of the GaiaNIR UKSA National Space Technology Programme Study (2021-2022)
- Lead of the GaiaNIR:UK consortium
- Medical Imaging
- co-I of the SPACE Cancer Research UK Grand Challenge Team (2024-)
- co-I of the IMAXT Cancer Research UK Grand Challenge Team (2017-2024)
- Investigator: AI Assisted Diagnosis and Prognostications in Covid-19 Team
- PI of the PathGrid medical imaging project
- Information Technologies
- Cambridge Board member: Virtual Atomic and Molecular Data Centre
Committees
- UK Space Agency: Discovery Advisory Committee for Science, Deputy Chair.
Career
- Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge: 2001 to present
- Royal Greenwich Observatory: 1993 - 2001
- University College London: 1989-1992
- Kapteyn Institute, University of Groningen: 1987-1989
Qualifications
- PhD - Imperial College, London
- MBA - Open University
- BSc (Hons) Physics - University of Nottingham
Awards and Prizes
- Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (2015) - as a member of the Supernova Cosmology Project
- Gruber Prize for Cosmology (2007) - as a member of the Supernova Cosmology Project
Other
- [2016] Gaia: The Data Deluge: interview on Naked Scientists
- [2015] LENS: glass work inspired by stars and cells: see the Cancer Research UK science blog
