I work on the formation and evolution of stars and
galaxies, from the emergence of the first generation
of stars in the Universe about hundred million years
after the Big Bang, all the way down to current times,
about 13.7 billion years later.
My main current interest is the search of the most
distant galaxies that we can find with the Hubble
Space Telescope. I am the Principal Investigator of
the Brightest of Reionizing Galaxies Survey (BoRG), a
large, multi-year Hubble program aimed at identifying
galaxies in the first 700 million years after the Big
Bang. I am one of the Chief Investigators in the Australian Research Council Centre for Excellence for All-Sky Astrophysics in 3-Dimensions (ASTRO-3D), leading the "First Galaxies" program.
In addition to using large space telescopes, I am leading two astrophysics nanosatellite projects. I am the Principal Investigator of the SpIRIT mission, a 6U technology demonstrator Cubesat expected to fly by 2022, funded by the Australian Space Agency’s International Space Investment: Expand Capability grant opportunity. Also, I am leading the development of SkyHopper, a mission concept for a small but powerful near-IR space telescope on a nanosatellite (12U Cubesat).
For more information of the variety of research topics
am contributing to, check out my publication list on
the
NASA ADS.
If you are looking for the
uncertainty in galaxy number counts induced by
clustering, you can use my Cosmic Variance Calculator.
Fellowship Awards:
Australian Research Council Future Fellowship
Kavli Institute Fellowship, University of Cambridge
Marie Curie Career Integration Fellowship, European Commission
Funding as Principal Investigator:
Over AUD 9,000,000 in funding awarded for multiple
projects as Principal Investigator (theory,
observations, and instrumentation), including more than 2,100 hours of time
on the Hubble Space Telescope.