"I am a young Scientist, currently doing my PhD at Cardiff University on Galaxy research. I spent a year working at ESA on the Gaia space mission. "
Hi there and welcome to my blog. My real name is Matthew, but I also go by the name of the UKAstroNut (pun on Astronaut intended!). I am currently studying at Cardiff university, undertaking a research PhD on Galaxies, having started in 2012. Before this I spent a year working for the European Space Agency (ESA) on a graduate scheme, specifically working on the Gaia Mission.
I worked on the software which detects the stars in the first place, which is obviously rather important!
My work at ESA
Between 2011 and 2012 I worked for the European Space Agency, ESA (The European version of NASA). I was working on a sort of graduate scheme, in my case on the ESA mission Gaia. Gaia is a satellite in space that will observe 1 billion stars in our galaxy, finding their precise positions and movements. This will allow us to create a model of how the stars in our galaxy have travelled over time, creating a history of our galaxy!I worked on the software which detects the stars in the first place, which is obviously rather important!
My work at Cardiff
I am currently undertaking my PhD in the Astrophysics department at Cardiff University. This is a research PhD, which means the work I do is a mix of solo-learning and working on a project under guidance of a supervisor. I also undertook my under-graduate education at Cardiff University. My research is in Galaxy formation, the difficult task of trying to understand how the galaxies we see around us today were formed. I'm lucky enough to be able to use the Herschel Space Observatory to get lots of great images of galaxies throughout the universe and us these to map the evolution of galaxies.
At Cardiff University we work on many different areas of Astrophysics, with strong research teams in Galaxies, Star Formation, Theoretical Cosmology and Astronomical Instrumentation. We also have a very strong department in Gravitational Physics, some area between astrophysics and straight physics. This gives me a lot of opportunities to learn about other areas of physics, both in weekly post-graduate lectures, seminars from external speakers and discussing physics over a cup of tea!
Proof I am human
Many people often see scientists as these crazy, work obsessed, socially 'different' beings. And that may be true of a few of them! But the rest of us are not like this. Even our jobs are pretty normal, most of us just sit in front of computers all day. I had a talk once where the speaker was talking about her collaborators on a project, in which she wanted to illustrate to us that her collaborators were just normal people. To do this she put up a picture of each of people beside their name, specifically of them doing something normal (or even better looking like a bit of a twit). So here's mine:
Me driving a boat around the Dutch canals!
So what do I do outside of Astrophysics? Well I enjoy playing sports and I'll give any a go. I play a lot of golf and football, and am a big fan of Liverpool FC. I also enjoy watching a lot of films and TV series
