Introducing Richard Easther

Prof Richard Easther is an astrophysicist at the University of Auckland, in New Zealand. Easther’s work spans topics in astrophysics and particle cosmology. These range from the behaviour of dark matter on galactic scales, through to the cosmology of the “multiverse”, observational signatures of the hypothetical “inflationary” era, and the possible cosmological implications of string theory.

Easther is a New Zealander, and completed his undergraduate degree and PhD at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, graduating with his doctorate in 1994. He held post-doctoral positions at Waseda in Tokyo, Brown in Providence. Rhode Island, and Columbia in New York City. Easther became a faculty member in Physics and Astronomy at Yale University from 2004. He returned to New Zealand at the end of 2011, moving home to take up a professorship at the University of Auckland, where he is currently Head of Department [Chair] of Physics.

An enthusiastic teacher, Easther has led a major overhaul of the undergraduate physics curriculum at the University of Auckland, and he is a co-founder of the university’s Science Scholars programme. Easther has been involved with a number of initiatives to improve equity outcomes, and he is a frequent commentator on science and technology issues in New Zealand. His blog is at excursionset.com, he is on twitter at @reasther and his group’s homepage is at cosmology.auckland.ac.nz

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Reintroducing Michael West

Michael West is Deputy Director for Science at Lowell Observatory. He has been a professional astronomer for more than three decades and feels blessed to be able to explore the universe for a living. He received his PhD in astronomy from Yale University and held research, teaching and leadership positions at universities and observatories on four continents before joining Lowell in 2015.

Michael’s research is extragalactic in focus. Over the years he has studied giant cannibal galaxies, orphaned star clusters, the cosmic web, and other curios of the cosmos.  He began his career as a theoretical astrophysicist – his PhD thesis was a computational study of how the properties of galaxy clusters might depend on the type of dark matter that dominates the universe – but he gradually moved into observational astronomy.

Michael is passionate about sharing the wonders of the universe with people of all ages, and currently serves on the IAU’s Commission C2 on Communicating Astronomy with the Public. He loves writing and is particularly fascinated by the interplay between science and culture. His essays have been published by The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, USA Today, Scientific American, Astronomy magazine and more. He has also written two books, most recently A Sky Wonderful with Stars: 50 Years of Modern Astronomy on Maunakea, and he’s hard at work on his next book.

Introducing Aswin Sekhar

Dr Aswin Sekhar is a solar system dynamicist at Armagh Observatory & Planetarium, Northern Ireland. His work mainly focuses on the dynamical evolution of small solar system bodies like meteoroids, comets and asteroids.

He is the first professional meteor astronomer from India. In addition to research, he contributes popular science articles to various national and international media. He does multiple science public outreach projects in India for rural schools and university students.

Apart from sciency stuff, he enjoys swimming, badminton, cricket, chess, experimenting various Indian recipes, playing Tabla (Indian drums), treks on mountains, sipping beer near beaches and gambling card games for non-astronomical sums of money! Having said all this, he is not an expert in any of these things mentioned above!

 

Re-introducing Kat Volk

I’m Kat Volk (@kat_volk), a staff scientist at the University of Arizona’s Department of Planetary Sciences/Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson, Arizona. My research mostly involves a mix of theoretical and observational studies of trans-Neptunian objects (aka Kuiper belt objects) in the outer solar system, with a focus on how their orbits can help us understand the dynamical history of the giant planets in our solar system. I also study the dynamics of exoplanet systems like those discovered by the Kepler mission.

I got my PhD in planetary science from the University of Arizona in 2013. I then spent two years working at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, mostly as part of the Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS) which discovered more than 800 objects in the outer solar system. I moved back to Tucson in 2015 to continue a variety of research projects. You can find research updates on my website: katvolk.com.