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I am Professor of Radio Astronomy at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics and one of the five inaugural Turing AI Fellows of the Alan Turing Institute.
My research specialises in the development of novel AI solutions for modern astrophysics, with a focus on data-intensive radio astronomy. In particular I am interested in extracting well-calibrated posterior estimates from data-driven Bayesian deep-learning models, group-equivariant deep-learning and symmetries, and learning multi-purpose representations from large volumes of unlabelled data through self-supervised approaches (foundation models).
I am the Director of Research for the UKRI AI Centre for Doctoral Training in Decision Making for Complex Systems, a member of the UKRI AI Strategic Advisory Team and the STFC E-infrastructure Advisory Group. I have previously designed and run two large multi-national training programs to provide bursaries for students from Southern Africa and Latin America to pursue graduate degrees in the UK focusing on big data and data intensive science. I am currently the Big Data lead for DARA-3.
I have significant experience in technical radio astronomy development and scientific computing. My work on the Square Kilometre Array project included the algorithmic design of the image formation workflows within the observatory Science Data Processor, and the design of the computing and storage for a European SKA Regional Data Centre as part of the H2020 AENEAS Project. I am currently the UK representative to the International Union of Radio Sciences (Commission J: Radio Astronomy) and Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Royal Astronomical Society’s Techniques & Instruments (RASTI) journal.
In 2014, I was honoured by the World Economic Forum as one of thirty scientists under the age of 40 selected for their contributions to advancing the frontiers of science, engineering or technology in areas of high societal impact. In 2017 I was awarded the Blaauw Chair in Astrophysics (prize chair) at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands for excellence in research, broad knowledge of astronomy and an outstanding international status in astronomy. In 2019, I received the Jackson-Gwilt Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, awarded for outstanding invention, improvement, or development of astronomical instrumentation or techniques.