Research projects

Supermassive black holes in the early Universe are more massive than we can presently explain. We aim to construct their demographics and reveal their origin.

Blue stragglers are main-sequence stars that are more luminous and bluer than stars of the same age, and their existence has long defied standard stellar evolution.

The student will analyse Gaia data to recompute orbits of unbound metal-poor stars, exploring their origins and role in the Milky Way’s evolution.

“Fireballs in the sky” is a citizen science app as part of the Desert Fireball Network (DFN). DFN cameras in the Australian desert and the app trac meteors and space junk as it enters the skies.

The project will contribute to the science, development, and engagement aspects of the app.

Students will help commission and operate the Ring Image Next Generation Scintillation Sensor (RINGSS), a newly developed atmospheric turbulence profiling instrument, and analyse the resulting data to produce site statistics.

Stellar rotation significantly affects the observed properties of stars, altering their luminosity, colour, and evolutionary paths. This project investigates how stellar rotation influences the appearance of stars in colour–magnitude diagrams of young star clusters using large spectroscopic surveys such as Gaia, LAMOST, and GALAH. The goal is to map rotational velocities to photometric changes, identify the most sensitive photometric filters, and use state-of-the-art stellar evolution models to refine cluster parameter estimates including ages, masses, and evolutionary states.

The student will model the gamma-ray emission around the Milky Way's central bubble.

In this project, the idea would be to combine the publicly available GALAH and APOGEE spectra and analyse them together: We should be able to measure up to 40 different elements from hundreds of lines and provide the community with reference values.

This project aims to investigate these enigmatic stars using asteroseismology, the study of stellar oscillations.

By conducting this comprehensive study, we will gain valuable insights into the distinctive properties of the HI gas in the Magellanic Stream. This will allow us to compare the properties of HI gas in the Magellanic Stream with those in the Magellanic Clouds and the Milky Way, shedding light on the differences between.

By mapping the motions of many galaxies, this project aims to precisely measure the amount and distribution of both visible and dark matter and test Einstein’s theory of gravity.

The goal of this project is to use new, high-resolution simulations to understand how key physical processes, like stellar feedback and gravitational instabilities, shape disk galaxies (from 11 Gyr ago to today).

Stellar spectra capture the light of a star across multiple wavelengths and include absorption features of numerous atoms and molecules from a star’s photosphere. The abundance data many stars then allow us to study the chemical evolution across large scales in our Galaxy and decipher Galactic trends.

In this project you will use a new cosmic ray propagation code, CRIPTIC, to model the injection, transport, and final annihilation of positrons in the interstellar medium of the inner Galaxy.

In this project you will use some combination of theoretical population synthesis calculations and/or analysis of public data from the Fermi telescope to examine the question: what is the real origin of the Galactic Centre Gamma-Ray Excess?