Dr. Henry Zovaro

Postdoctoral Fellow

I grew up in Sydney, where I completed a double degree in science, majoring in physics, and mechatronic engineering, specialising in space engineering, at the University of Sydney in 2015.

After developing an interesting in astronomy during undergraduate research projects at both USYD and ANU, I decided to focus my honours project on evaluating the use of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) in optical adaptive optics systems for use in small telescopes.

In 2016 I moved to Canberra to start my PhD at the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at ANU, where I studied the ways in which jets from Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) affect galaxy evolution using some of the world's largest telescopes, including Keck and Gemini North in Hawai'i.

Since submitting my PhD in 2019, I have stayed at ANU. From 2019-2020, I worked as an instrument scientist for the Giant Magellan Telescope Integral Field Spectrograph (GMTIFS), where I devleoped software for simulating and processing observations made with this future instrument.

I returned to astrophysics full-time in 2020, where I have worked on projects involving radio galaxies, photoionisation modelling, and winds and thick disks in star-forming galaxies. I am also a member of the Hector Galaxy Survey, and am leading the development of scientific data products that will be released to the public in future data releases.

Research interests

  • Galaxy formation and evolution
  • Radio galaxies
  • Optical emission line diagnostics
  • Photoionisation modelling
  • Data analysis and data science
  • Optical and near-infrared instrumentation
  • Zovaro, H, Riseley, C, Taylor, P et al. 2022, 'Revisiting the giant radio galaxy ESO 422-G028 - I. Discovery of a neutral inflow and recent star formation in a restarted giant', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 509, no. 4, pp. 4997-5017.
  • Zovaro, H, Sharp, R, Nesvadba, N et al. 2020, 'Unravelling the enigmatic ISM conditions in Minkowski's object', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 499, no. 4, pp. 4940-4960.
  • Zovaro, H, Nesvadba, N, Sharp, R et al. 2019, 'Searching for signs of jet-driven negative feedback in the nearby radio galaxy UGC 05771', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 489, no. 4, pp. 4944-4961.
  • Zovaro, H, Sharp, R, Nesvadba, N et al. 2019, 'Jets blowing bubbles in the young radio galaxy 4C 31.04', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 484, no. 3, pp. 3393-3409.