Physics & Astrophysics

I did my undergraduate degree at the University of Birmingham, obtaining a BSc(Hons) in Physics with Astrophysics in 1994 and completed my PhD in 1999 at the University of Leicester. My PhD thesis was based on a survey of distant quasars detected with the ASCA satellite. After my PhD, I worked as a post-doctoral Research Scientist in the X-ray Astronomy group at the University of Leicester until 2002. I then worked for 5 years in the USA as a Research Scientist within the Astrophysics Division at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, near Washington DC, and at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore. I returned to the UK in April 2007, to work in the Astrophysics Group at Keele.

I am part of the Astrophysics Group at Keele and a member of the Research Institute for the Environment, Physical Sciences and Applied Mathematics (EPSAM).

My main research interest is on understanding the accretion of matter onto Super-massive Black Holes, which exist in the centres of most galaxies. These are known as Active Galactic Nuclei (or AGN for short). I study the properties of the AGN inner accretion disk, which exists close to the black hole event horizon, by using spectroscopy and timing observations from space based X-ray telescopes such as XMM-Newton, Chandra and Suzaku. I am also interested in AGN outflows and the connection between black hole and host galaxy evolution.

My other areas of interest cover a wide range of extragalactic astrophysics. These include studies of Gamma-ray bursts, their connection with supernovae and high redshift bursts, as well as ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs) in nearby galaxies and high redshift quasars.

Year 2

• PHYS-2PROB - Physics Problem Classes (a component of all year-2 modules)

Post-Graduate

• EDU-40054 Science Additional Specialism Programme (Quantum Mechanics and Astrophysics module).