Centres and institutes_

Sydney Institute for Astronomy

Cutting-edge theoretical and observational research

We are a leader in big data science with local and national supercomputing resources supporting simulations of cosmology, galaxy formation and evolution.

Our aims

Established within the School of Physics, the Sydney Institute for Astronomy (SIfA) is a national and international leader in astronomy and physics research. We are also committed to excellence in postgraduate training and research-led undergraduate training.

The University owns the:

Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope (MOST)
Square Kilometre Pathfinder (SKAMP)

The development and application of new technology for the next generation of instruments and telescopes is enabled through state-of-the-art Sydney Astrophotonic Instrumentation Laboratories (SAIL).

Our Institute has leadership or key involvement in several major surveys including the:

Kepler K2 survey
Galactic Archaeology (GALAH) survey of a million nearby stars
SAMI Galaxy Survey
OzDES galaxy survey
FLASH survey of radio galaxies
UTMOST survey of fast radio bursts.

The CAASTRO Centre of Excellence is housed within the School of Physics and engages about half of the students and staff within SIfA. Through our leading role in the Physics Equity and Access Committee (PEAC), we aim to provide an environment that is equitable and supportive for all staff and students, free of conscious and unconscious bias, with access to facilities, learning and work open to all.

Our people

Teaching and research staff

Name	Position	Website
Prof. Tim Bedding		official \| personal
Prof. Joss Bland-Hawthorn	Director, SIfA, ARC Laureate Fellow	official \| personal
A/Prof. Scott Croom		official \| personal
Prof. Anne Green		official
Prof. Dick Hunstead		official
Dr Helen Johnston		official \| personal
Dr Sergio Leon-Saval	Director, SAIL Labs	official
Prof. Geraint Lewis		official \| personal
Prof. Don Melrose		official \| personal
A/Prof. Tara Murphy	ARC Future Fellow	official \| personal
A/Prof. John O'Byrne		official \| personal
Prof. Elaine Sadler	Director, CAASTRO	official
Prof. Peter Tuthill	ARC Future Fellow	official \| personal
A/Prof. Mike Wheatland		official \| personal

Research fellows and postdoctoral researchers

Name	Position	Website
Dr Chris Betters		official
Dr Krzysztof Bolejko	ARC Future Fellow	official
Dr Shari Breen		official
Dr Julia Bryant		official
Dr Gayandhi De Silva		official
Dr Caroline Foster	ASTRO 3D Fellow	official \| personal
Dr Magda Guglielmo		official
Dr Michael Hayden	Sydney Stromlo Fellowship	official
Dr Janez Kos		official
Dr Tanda Li		official
Dr Alpha Mastrano		official
Dr Seong-Sik Min		official
Dr Simon Murphy	DECRA	official
Dr Barnaby Norris		official
Dr Nic Scott		official
Dr Sanjib Sharma		official
Dr Adam Stewart		official
Dr Thorsten Tepper Garcia		official
Dr Jesse Van de Sande		official \| personal
Dr Timothy Van Reeth		official

Students

Name	Research Topic
Eromanga Adermann	Cosmic Voids in Evolving and Interacting Dark Sector Cosmologies
Rebecca Brown	Next generation 3D spectroscopy for the Anglo-Australian Telescope
Filip Chatys	Period-luminosity relations of red giants and supergiants
Isabel Colman	Asteroseismology using Kepler pixel data, with a focus on binary phenomena and red giants
Douglas Compton	Asteroseismology of Red Giant Stars
Jason Drury	Asteroseismology of Open Clusters: Ensembles and Kepler
Marcin Glowacki	Study of HI Absorption Against Distant Radio Sources through ASKAP
Asger Gronnow	The effect of the Galactic magnetic field on the accretion and survival of gas clouds
Daniel Hey	Binaries and pulsating stars
Stuart Holwell
Nikolas Iwanus	Dark Matter Annihilation in Cosmological Simulations
Ben Jelliffee
Apsem Jibrail	The Growth of Angular Momentum in Non-Standard Cosmological Models
Shourya Khanna
Alexey Latyshev	Interferometric image recovery in astronomy
Gang Li	Asteroseismology of gamma Doradus stars
Ralph Morgan	High angular resolution imaging of Galactic microquasar SS 433 and various stellar objects
Angela Ng
Harry Qiu	Detection and classification of Fast Radio Bursts
Mohammad Rafat
Katazhyna Redzikultsava	Testing Non-Standard Cosmological Models With Supernova Data
Kathy Ross
Mathew Varidel
Zhen Wan	Galaxy Archeology
Troy Whinray
Jie Yu	Asteroseimology of 16,000 oscillating red giants observed by Kepler
Rai Yuen
Andrew Zic

Our events

Seminars

Seminars are held weekly typically on Fridays at 11am to 12pm in LT5 at the School of Physics building (A28). If you wish to give a talk or presentation please email Nic Scott.

Unfortunately, we do not have general funds available to cover travel or accommodation costs. If you would like to give a talk or are scheduled at a time that you will be away please let us know ASAP. If you have students or visitors that are going to have interesting topics to talk about please dob them in. Let us know if you will be giving a long (45min) or short (20min) talk, so we can have either two short talks or one long talk each week.

Current Events

Date	Time	Speaker	Title
May 31	11am LT5	Aman Khalid, Hillary Davis	SSP Project student talks
Jun 7	11am LT5	Peter Cottrell	Interpreting stellar spectra or The life of a spectroscopist
Jul 2	11am LT5	Alan McConnachie	The Mauna Kea Spectroscopic Explorer
Jul 5	11am LT5	Guillaume Drouart	TBC
Nov 1	11am LT5	Ortwin Gerhard & Magda Aenaboldi	TBC

Past Events

Date	Time	Speaker	Title
Jan 25	11am LT5	Lucia Armillotta	Metal mixing during star cluster formation
Feb 1	11am LT5	Andrew Hopkins	Measuring the stellar initial mass function
Feb 8	11am LT5	Matthew Baring	A Multiwavelength Perspective on Acceleration and Radiation in Extragalactic Jets
Feb 15	11am LT5	Toshi Futamese	Possible constraints on neutrino mass and dark energy from the lensing dispersion of the magnitude-redshift relation of Type Ia supernovae
Mar 1	11am LT5	Chris Tinney	VELOCE
Mar 8	11am LT5	Ahmed Elagali	Studies of Interacting Galaxies & the Environmental Effects on Their Evolution
Mar 15	11am LT5	Robert Jedicke	Super catastrophic asteroid disruption
Mar 22	11am LT5	Jo Dawson	Shining Light on the Dark ISM
Mar 29	11am LT5	Robert Jedicke	Super catastrophic asteroid disruption
Apr 5	11am LT5	Maria Cunningham	Radio Astronomy in the Era of Large surveys: Interpreting the results of large, multi-molecular-line datasets of the molecular ISM
Apr 9	11am LT5	Nicholas Martin	Mining and mapping the first generations of stars with the Pristine CaH&K survey
Apr 12	11am LT5	Amelia Fraser-Mckelvie	The complicated lives of disk galaxies
May 3	11am LT5	Nichole Barry	The Future of EoR Structure Limits
May 10	11am LT5	Nell Byler	Ultraviolet spectral diagnostics for star forming galaxies at high redshift
May 16	11am LT5	Kim Venn	Data Analysis and Machine Learning in Astrophysical Stellar Spectroscopic Surveys
May 17	11am LT5	Mahavir Sharma	Cosmic Reionization and its fossils in the Milky Way