Profile

I’ve recently moved to Oxford where I live with my husband. Before that we spent 5 years living in Cape Town (South Africa). I loved the sunshine in South Africa so my first winter back in the UK was quite a shock!

I research how galaxies form and how they change with time. The galaxies I study are billions of light years away, and I use data from telescopes all over the world to investigate their properties. I’m currently using the newly-built MeerKAT telescope in South Africa, which is the most powerful radio telescope in the Southern Hemisphere and allows us to detect fainter and more distant galaxies than ever before.

All galaxies have a supermassive black hole, with a mass several millions times the mass of the Sun, at their centre. In most galaxies this central supermassive black hole remains dormant, but in some galaxies gas and dust is falling towards it, causing a large quantity of energy to be released. These extremely bright objects are known as “active galactic nuclei” (AGN), and 10-20% spew powerful jets of very energetic particles from their centre. These jets can be millions of trillions of km in size (many thousands of times the size of the galaxy itself) and are visible using radio telescopes. (This is because they emit radio waves, which are electromagnetic waves with very long wavelengths.)

I am particularly interested in these radio jets, as the energy released is thought to have a profound effect on the host galaxies themselves. We think these jets dramatically slow the rate at which stars form in the galaxy, but the mechanisms behind this process are not well understood. This is where my research comes in!

I’m combining data from the MeerKAT radio telescope with data from the world’s best optical, infrared and X-ray telescopes to find out more about these giant jets.

Pre-lockdown I used to cycle to work, which I really enjoy as it allows me to clear my head at the start of the day (except on the days it’s torrentially raining, when it’s not quite so much fun!). However now my commute is much shorter, as my desk is in my bedroom!

I start my work day with a cup of tea and read my emails – I’m currently working with some colleagues in Australia and New Zealand, so due to the time difference I often receive emails from them over night. Then I get stuck in to my work for the day – this usually involves analysing data in the computer language python.

At some point during the morning I usually check arXiv – this is where new scientific papers are posted each day. I check to see if there are any new papers which are relevant to my research. I usually spot a few which look interesting, so I open then and read the abstract (the short paragraph at the beginning which summarises the paper) and scan through and look at any interesting figures. It’s much easier to get the key information from the plots rather than reading all the text! If any of the papers are particularly relevant to me I’ll add them to my list to read in more detail later. It’s important know how my research fits in with other work that’s being done around the world.

Depending on the day I’ll usually have a seminar, group meeting or journal club to attend, where I’ll meet with small or larger groups of colleagues in the department to hear more about their work and/or my work and have some discussions. Most of these meeting are now happening remotely which is working quite well.

At the end of the day I’ll cycle home again (up hill this time!) and I usually try and do something active in the evening – I go to the gym, play netball or tag rugby (none of these are happening at the moment though obviously, so I’m running and cycling instead).