About Me


A versatile astronomer and software engineer with more than 15 years experience developing complex software systems in the context of astrophysics research

I have a wealth of development experience spanning all phases of the software creation and maintenance cycle; from initial conceptual design and definition of requirements, through build, optimisation and test phases, and on to deployment and user support. My skillset has a solid foundation acquired though an early career phase as a developer within the telecom industry. I have been responsible for the overall architectural design and the detailed descriptions of several large and complex software projects. I am fluent in several core programming languages and competent in many others, and can quickly convert competency to fluency in a short space of time when the project demands it. I have experience in using a wide range of software packages, libraries, and development tools.

My primary scientific interest is the characterisation of the active galactic nucleus (AGN) population, how its properties have evolved over cosmic history, and how these AGN relate to the evolving galaxy population in general. I am particularly interested in combining large X-ray selected AGN samples with multi-wavelength supporting datasets, including spectroscopy, in order to elucidate the detailed characteristics of the AGN population. However, my interests extend further; my research career, at MSSL/UCL, the University of Southampton, and MPE, has included detailed studies of individual accreting black holes, and radio/infra-red studies of the starforming galaxy population.

Projects Services

Project Gallery


eROSITA Science Analysis System

Design, coding and testing of X-ray data reduction software
eROSITA software

SDSS-IV/SPIDERS

Target selection and survey monitoring
SPIDERS

Speccy

Spectrum Visual Inspection web-tool
Speccy

4MOST

Operations System and Facility Simulator

eROSE

eROSITA Sky Explorer

Swiftly

Automated data pipeline and alert system

Survey visualisation

Sky maps and coverage tools

eROPub

eROSITA Publications Archive

Imaging surveys

Ground based follow-up

Services


What TD Astro can offer

TD Astro provides freelance astronomy consulting and scientific software services to Universities and research institutes. TD Astro is well placed to contribute to projects that do not match well to the 2-3 year timescales typical of astronomy postdoc positions. For example, by quickly developing self contained software tools that are required on short timescales. At the other extreme, TD Astro can provide continuity of expertise over the lifetime of long-term astronomy projects.

Areas of expertise

  • Distilling broadly expressed scientific goals into well defined system requirements
  • Development of astronomy software tools and systems
  • Survey planning, strategy and optimisation
  • Data reduction pipelines
  • Online and offline data visualisation
  • Simulation and system modelling
  • Software optimization and hardening

Languages and packages

  • C/C++, Python, Fortran, csh/bash, gnuplot, awk, SQL, HTML, Javascript, CSS
  • Django, HEASOFT/cfitsio, stilts/Topcat, gcc, valgrind, gdb, latex, make, HEALPix, mangle, IRAF, git, cvs, JIRA, MS Office

Get In Touch


Send an E-mail to: info@tdastro.com, or fill out the form below.
I look forward to discussing how TD Astro can contribute to your next project!