Name: Looking Forward To: Astrophysics
Start: 2024-07-29T18:30:00+10:00
Location: Avid Reader Bookshop

Join astrophysicists Tamara Davis, Benjamin Pope and Eileen O'Hely in conversation with Kris Kneen about the future of astrophysics in today's society.
ABOUT THE EVENT
This new conversation series brings together experts in their feild to discuss trends, major innovations and future predictions in a given field. Our seccond conversation is about the field of astrophysics. Three astrophysicists from Brisbane will discuss their understandings of their work and the general field of astrophysics today, the trends they have spotted and their predictions for the study of astrophysics into the future. What areas of scientific thought and practice will be important in a changing society?
The group will also recommend books to help you understand their chosen field so you will come away with a reading list for your own personal study.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
PROFESSOR TAMARA DAVIS
Professor Tamara Davis is an astrophysicist who studies the elusive "dark energy" that's accelerating the universe. She did her PhD at the University of New South Wales on theoretical cosmology and black holes, then worked on supernova cosmology in two postdoctoral fellowships, the first at the Australian National University (collaborating with Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory) and the second at the University of Copenhagen, before moving to Queensland to join the WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey team working on mapping the galaxies in the universe. She led the Dark Theme within the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics, is now leading the OzDES survey -- working with the international Dark Energy Survey, and working with working with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument project.
Her accolades include the Astronomical Society of Australia's Louise Webster Medal for early career research impact, the L'Oréal Women in Science Fellowship for Australia, the Australian Institute of Physics Women in Physics Lectureship, the Australian Academy of Science's Nancy Millis Medal for outstanding female leadership in science, an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship, the Astronomical Society of Australia's Ellery Lectureship, and a Member of the Order of Australia (AM).
DR BENJAMIN POPE
ARC DECRA Senior Research Fellow - physics at University of Qld
Dr Benjamin Pope researches extrasolar planets - planets around other stars - and focuses on developing and applying new data science approaches for detecting and characterizing them. He has taken nearly every approach to exoplanet and stellar observation, including transits, radial velocities, direct imaging, and asteroseismology.
As an ARC DECRA Fellow Benjamin is mainly working on exoplanet direct imaging with the James Webb Space Telescope, and especially how we can use differentiable & probabilistic programming to enhance data analysis to detect faint objects in noisy data. He also works on radio astronomy to study planets' magnetic interactions with their host stars, and using radiocarbon in tree rings as a tracer of long term solar activity.
Benjamin grew up in Sydney, New South Wales, and studied for hisHonours and Masters at the University of Sydney. He studied abroad at the University of California, Berkeley, and in 2017, completed a DPhil in Astrophysics at Balliol College, Oxford. From 2017-20 Ben was a NASA Sagan Fellow at the NYU Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics and Center for Data Science. Benjamin is now a Lecturer in Astrophysics and DECRA Fellow at the University of Queensland.
DR EILEEN O'HELY
Eileen O’Hely has been a story teller from an early age. At primary school she took every opportunity to put on plays with her friends, and on weekends she’d have her dolls and teddy bears act out stories she’d made up.
After dabbling as an astrophysicist, Eileen put pen to paper (literally – she writes all her first drafts longhand) and experimented with junior fiction. Her first children’s book won the Children’s Books Ireland Bisto Honour Award, and other works have been shortlisted for various awards in Australia, and been included in the Premier’s Reading Challenge.
When she’s not working her day job as a science communicator or driving her kids to extra-curricular activities, Eileen enjoys playing piano, singing and tap dancing, and watching the experts do it better in live musical theatre.