The team
Katherine Blundell OBE - Project Leader
Katherine Blundell is a Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford and a Research Fellow at St John's College Oxford. She is frequently invited to speak at conferences around the world and has published extensively on jets, their evolution and their impact on their surroundings. She won a Philip Leverhulme Prize in 2005 and awarded the Rosalind Franklin prize by the Royal Society in December 2010 for her contributions to astrophysics and the Bragg medal by the Institute of Physics in October 2012. She was also awarded the Royal Astronomical Society's Darwin Lectureship in 2015. In 2017, she received an OBE in the Queen's birthday honours, for "services to astronomy and the education of young people”.
Steve Lee - Instrument Scientist
Steve Lee is a senior technician based at the Australian Astronomical Observatory at Siding Spring, Australia. In addition to his professional duties of operating the AAT and working with the AAO's instrument group, he is also a keen amateur astronomer and makes his own telescopes (including their mirrors). He visually discovered comet 1999H1 and asteroid 46568 is named after him. He designed and constructed the spectrographs for this project.
Chris McCowage - Electronics Consultant
Chris spent much of his career at the Anglo-Australian Telescope, working with state-of-the-art electronics and detector systems. He plays a key role in the electrical side of the observatory operations, most notably in the design and deployment of the solar farmyard which now entirely powers our India school observatory, GJW-IN.
Augustus Porter - Research Student
Augustus Porter is a doctoral student at Pembroke College, Oxford. He studies the evolved supergiant binary star GG Carinae, focusing on the dynamics of its circumstellar environment, using data collected by the Global Jet Watch telescopes. He has a keen interest in software and music, and rows for Pembroke alongside his research.
David Grant - Research Student
David Grant is a doctoral student at Keble College, Oxford. He is working on the dynamics and outflows of multiple-star systems using data-streams from the Global Jet Watch. He is a keen sailor and also enjoys other watersports such as surfing.
Dominic McLoughlin - Research Student
Dominic McLoughlin is a doctoral student at Oriel College, Oxford. He is studying the explosions of stars in the Milky Way, particularly focusing on two specific stars called Nova Sagittarii V5668 and ASASSN-18fv, and using spectra from the Global Jet Watch to characterise the eruptions. He also represents Oxford University in swimming, water polo and modern pentathlon, and enjoys coaching these sports.
We are grateful to the following people who have helped us at various times in various places!
- Russell Allcock
- Anabella Araudo
- Tony Beasley
- Stephen Blundell
- Martin Carter
- Sarah Chapman
- Phil Charles
- Fraser Clarke
- Sam Doolin
- Ron Ekers
- Ilana Feian
- Vanessa Ferraro-Wood
- Guillermo Gallardo
- Andrew Gosling
- Paul Goodall
- David Grant
- Steve Grant
- John Harris
- Chris Hunter
- Mark Jones
- Michael Kesteven
- Zdenka Kuncic
- Geraint Lewis
- Simon Moulder
- David Murphy
- Chris McCowage
- Dominic McLoughlin
- Mat Newport
- David Newton
- Melvin Parenzee
- Hemal Patel
- Sebastian Perez
- Srihari Pralad
- Jacon Rajan
- Duraichelvan R
- Paul Riddington
- Jane Saldana
- Alan Sanders
- Tim Sanders
- Lakshmi Sarapell
- John Saunders
- Linda Schmidtobreick
- Ravi Subrahmanyan
- John Swinbank
- Prabu T
- Stig Topp-Jorgensen
- Max Topp-Mugglestone
- Dennis Winks
- Miguel Vargas Morel
- Elmarie van Heerden
- Dhamodaran V
- Bernard West