Luke Davies

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Luke Davies

Dr, PhD Brist.

 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3085-0922

  • The University of Western Australia (M468), 35 Stirling Highway,

    6009 Perth

    Australia

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Personal profile

Biography

I am currently employed as an ARC Future Fellow at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) at the UWA. This a continuation from  previous positions at the same institute including a prestigious John Stocker Fellowship. I have also previously held research positions at both the University of Bristol (UK) and University of Portsmouth (UK). In completed my PhD at the University of Bristol in 2011 entitled "A Multi-wavelgnth Study of Early Star-froming Galaxies".

Roles and responsibilities

I have a leading role in a number of large international projects, I am:

  • Principle Investigator of the Deep Extragalactic VIsible Legacy Survey (DEVILS) – a 90-night large program on the Anglo-Australaian Telescope.
  • Deputy Project Scientist for 4MOST
  • Project Scientist for Wide Area VISTA Extragalactic Survey (WAVES) – a 2Million redshift galaxy evolution survey on the ESO-4MOST telescope.
  • Lead of the 4MOST extragalactic analysis pipeline working group and member of the Operations Development Group  – 4MOST is a 60M euro upgrade to the VISTA telescope.
  • A Core member of many other large survey teams, most notably GAMA in which I have established myself as an international expert on star-formation and interactions.

Over the past ten years, my research has been focused on parameterising three central components of galaxy evolution in the local Universe: star-formation, the effect of environment on sub-Mpc scales (pairs and groups), and how star-formation and mergers combine to form and redistribute stars.

I have explored the properties of star-forming galaxies in the early Universe (Davies et al., 2010, 2012, 2013), laying the foundations for future studies with ALMA (Koprowski et al, 2016). More recently, I have focused on the local Universe, producing detailed parameterisations of star formation (Davies et al., 2016b, 2017) and interactions (Davies et al., 2015b, 2016a) in GAMA. In terms of data collection and management, I have produced extensive data products for GAMA, and developed online tools for accessing/analysing this data (GAMA-PSI, astroMap, etc). Most significantly, the DEVILS survey in its entirety will provide an extensive legacy dataset with which to study galaxy evolution.

Previous positions

  • Australian Research Council Future Fellow, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia. Jan 2021 - Jan 2025.
  • ICRAR Senior Research Fellow, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia. June 2019 - Dec 2020.
  • ICRAR Fellow, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia. Oct 2016 - June 2019.

  • John Stocker Fellow, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia. Oct 2013 - Oct 2016.

  • Post-doctoral research assistant, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK, Jun 2011 - Oct 2013.

  • Early stage researcher,  University of Portsmouth,  Portsmouth, UK,  Oct 2010 -  Apr 2011.

 

Community engagement

Presenting Highlights: 

  • TedX - Perth Guest Curator: Designed the program and hosted event for TedX-Perth. Audience of 250 people. Perth, Australia. Dec 2018
  • Neil DeGrasse Tyson Event: Hosted promotion company Think Inc's evening with Dr Neil DeGrasse Tyson to an audience of ~2000 people. Perth, Australia. Jul 2017
  • Perth Observatory's Winter Lecture: Invited Talk for Perth Observatory titled `Cosmic Fossil Hunting'. Perth, Australia. Aug 2017
  • Brian Greene Event: Presented at promotion company Think Inc's evening with Prof Brian Greene to an audience of ~500 people. Perth, Australia. Aug 2016
  • Perth Observatory's Summer Lecture: Invited Talk for Perth Observatory titled `Amazing Cosmos'. Perth, Australia. Jan 2016
  • Melbourne Astrofest: Invited Talk at Melbourne Astrofest/Festival of Light titled `Amazing Cosmos'. Melb, Australia. Aug 2015
  • Techtrails - Women in Technology WA: Spoke at Techtrails workshop organised by Women in Technology WA (WiTWA). Perth, Australia. Nov 2014
  • School, Societies and Events: I present ~monthly at local high schools, astronomy clubs and public events promoting astronomy topics to a broad range of audiences from primary school children to active amateur astronomers and undergraduate STEM students. Perth, Australia. 2014+ 
  • Astro Morning Tea: Organiser and presenter of ICRAR Astro Morning Tea - a weekly round-up of interesting science news aimed at promoting discussion of a broad range science topics. Perth, Australia. 2014- 2019 
  • AstroQuest: A department of Industry \& Innovation AU\$350,000 funding for citizen science project to explore galaxies building on Galaxy Explorer. Perth, Australia. Mar 2019
  • Galaxy Explorer: Citizen science project run by the ABC for national science week. Perth, Australia. Aug 2015

    

Media Highlights:

  • White Spark Documentary: Science liaison and interviewee for new international documentary about the SKA. Perth, Australia. Dec 2020-
  • Australian TV project: Helping write and present a new 30min Australian TV astronomy show, 'Star Tracks'. Filming complete due to be aired mid-2021. Perth, Australia. Mid 2020-
  • Quest to Unlock the Secrets of our Universe: Article interview in `Australian Sky and Telescope' magazine describing AstroQuest. Perth, Australia. Apr 2019
  • AstroQuest Launch: Various national and local radio interviews for the launch of AstroQuest. Perth, Australia. Mar 2019
  • Neutron-Star Mergers: Co-produced a short video describing a neutron-star neutron-star merger for Australia's Science Channel which has received ~17,000 views in the first two days. Perth, Australia. Oct 2017
  • Astro Morning Tea: Write and co-present a series of online vod-casts giving a fortnightly round up of science news stories, which are published online by Australia's Science Channel. Perth, Australia. 2017 + 
  • Star Tracks: Currently involved in pitching a 10 episode series on Australian astronomy to a national Channel 7 broadcaster (to date secured investment of $\sim$AU\$100,000 towards production of the series). Perth, Australia. Sep 2017
  • How Big is the Universe?: Article published in `All About Space' magazine's `Space Mysteries'. Perth, Australia. Oct 2016
  • The Universe is Dying: Made online video to support press release 'The Universe is Dying',  which was viewed 60,000 times in one week, reposted on many sites including: CNN, NY Post and Huffington Post. Live TV interviews with the BBC and ABC. Perth, Australia. Jul 2015
  • Cosmic Giant vs Galactic Dwarfs: Press release story `Cosmic Giant vs Galactic Dwarfs' published on multiple world-wide news sites and in print in the West Australian. Perth, Australia. Jun 2015
  • Galactic Giants Stunt the Little Guy: Article published in `COSMOS' magazine. Perth, Australia. Jun 2015
  • ScienceSnippets - EM Spectrum: Wrote and presented `ScienceSnippets' educational video on the electromagnetic spectrum. Perth, Australia. Dec 2014
  • AstroFest 2014: Presented public outreach video from `Astrofest 2014', interviewing members of the public about astronomy and answering their astronomy-related questions. Perth, Australia. Mar 2014
  • Physics World Videos: Presented short outreach videos for Physics World Magazine describing Dark Matter and Dark Energy in less than 90s to a general science audience. Bristol, UK. Aug 2012

 

 

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