Editorial Board
Prof. David R. Flower
University of Durham, UK
Editor-in-Chief
Biography
David Flower is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Durham, and is a long-standing member of the MNRAS editorial board. Prof. Flower's research interests include various aspects of the physics and chemistry of the interstellar medium, particularly the processes occurring in regions of star formation, such as shocks. He also calculates some of the basic molecular data that are required to interpret observations of atomic and molecular spectral lines.
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9118-7488
Professor Andrew R. King
University of Leicester, UK
Deputy Editor-in-Chief
Biography
Andrew King is Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics at the university of Leicester and holds visiting appointments at the universities of Amsterdam and Leiden. During his career he has been awarded a PPARC Senior Fellowship, the Gauss Professorship at the university of Goettingen, a Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award, and the RAS Eddington Medal. He is an author and co-author of several books, including Stars, a Very Short Introduction, and Accretion Power in Astrophysics. His research interests include accretion disc structure, supermassive black hole growth and feedback, active galactic nuclei, compact binary evolution, and ultraluminous X-ray sources.
Professor Phil Armitage
Stony Brook University, USA
Biography
Phil Armitage completed his undergraduate and graduate work at the University of Cambridge, working with Cathie Clarke. He is currently a professor at Stony Brook University, and a group leader at the Center for Computational Astrophysics. His research in theoretical and computational astrophysics focuses on the formation of extrasolar planetary systems, he physics of protoplanetary discs, and the astrophysics of black holes.
Prof. Evangelie (Lia) L. Athanassoula
Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille, France
Biography
Lia Athanassoula received her PhD from the University of Thessaloniki and is now working in the LAM in Marseilles (France). She is interested in the dynamics, chemo-dynamics, and the structure and evolution of disc galaxies, and has focused on substructures such as bars, spirals, rings, or bulges. Her interests include studies of orbital structure theory and of chaos, as well as of the nature and distribution of dark matter. She has extensively used hydro- and N-body simulations in the above studies of single galaxies, and more recently in interactions and mergers. She has also been heavily involved in comparisons of theory to observations and in data modelling.
Prof. Michael J. Barlow
University College London, UK
Biography
Mike Barlow did his thesis studies at the University of Sussex, advised by Roger Tayler, then general editor of MNRAS. He subsequently worked at the University of California, Berkeley; at JILA, University of Colorado; and at the Anglo-Australian Observatory. Returning from the AAO to the UK, he held an Advanced Fellowship at UCL before being appointed to a Lectureship, where he is currently a Professor of Astrophysics.
He was also an LWS Co-I for ESA's Infrared Space Observatory and a member of the SPIRE Science Team for ESA's Herschel Space Observatory. He is currently a member of the European Science Team for the JWST-MIRI instrument. His current research interests include dust physics, observational and theoretical studies aimed at elucidating whether supernovae are significant dust contributors to galaxies and studies of planetary nebulae, HII regions and blue compact dwarf galaxies.
Prof. Omer M. Blaes
University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
Biography
Omer Blaes received his bachelor’s degree from Queen Mary College London and his doctorate from the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste, Italy. After postdoctoral work at the California Institute of Technology and the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, he joined the faculty in the Department of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1993. His research interests are in theoretical astrophysics, particularly magnetohydrodynamics and accretion disc theory.
Prof. Andrew J. Bunker
University of Oxford, UK
Biography
Andy Bunker’s main research interest is finding very distant galaxies. He uses the Hubble Space Telescope, and large telescopes on the ground (involving lots of trips to Hawaii and Chile), to study the astrophysics of how galaxies form and evolve, and when stars are born in the early Universe. He did both his undergraduate degree and doctorate at Oxford, held postdoctoral positions at the universities of Cambridge and California (Berkeley), and was previously Head of Astronomy at the Anglo-Australian Observatory, based in Sydney. He is also on the Instrument Science Team for the NIRSpec spectrograph on the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to Hubble.
Dr Carla Cacciari
Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna, Italy
Biography
Carla Cacciari obtained her Degree in Physics at the University of Bologna. Her main scientific interests include stellar astrophysics, Population II objects (e.g. globular clusters, Cepheid/RR Lyrae variables), and structure and stellar populations of the Milky Way and Local Group galaxies. She spent some time at the MSSSO (Australia) and at the RGO (UK) studying the RR Lyrae variables and the phenomenon of mass loss from red giant stars in a few globular clusters. For several years she worked as an ESA fellow at the IUE project in VILSPA (Madrid), and as an ESA Resident Astronomer at the Hubble STScI in Baltimore. In those positions, she worked in the groups providing support and assistance to the observers, as well as continuing her own scientific research activity. She is presently involved with the Gaia project in the group responsible for providing the absolute calibration of the Gaia spectro-photometric system.
Prof. Andrew Collier Cameron
University of St Andrews, UK
Biography
Andrew Cameron is Professor of Astronomy at the University of St Andrews. His research is in stellar magnetic fields and the discovery and characterisation of extrasolar planets.
In his early career, he focused on the rotational history and dynamo-generated magnetic activity of cool stars, ultimately producing micro-arcsecond resolution maps of starspot distributions and surface magnetic fields. With Dr R. D. Robinson he co-discovered the centrifugally supported "slingshot prominence" systems in the coronae of the young, rapidly rotating solar-type star AB Doradus and other similar objects.
Prof. Cameron is currently the UK Co-PI of the Geneva/SUPA/Harvard/INAF/Belfast HARPS-North spectrograph project, and is combining high-precision radial-velocity measurements with stellar activity characterisation to push the limits on planetary mass determination down towards the Earth-mass regime. He is a member of the Science Team for the Swiss-led ESA S-class CHaracterising ExOPlanets Satellite (CHEOPS; launch expected 2019), for which he leads the Working Group on data analysis.
Prof. Cecilia Ceccarelli
Université Grenoble Alpes
Cecilia Ceccarelli is a Professor at the Université Grenoble Alpes. She started her career with a thesis on the Cosmic Background Radiation at the University of Rome La Sapienza in 1982. After a short period working in private companies, she joined the CNR in Italy as a permanent researcher. She then spent two years at NASA Ames in Mountain View (USA) and joined the Observatory of Bordeaux in 2000 and the Observatory of Grenoble in 2003. She was a member of the ESA Infrared Space Observatory LWS and Herschel Space Observatory HIFI consortium teams. She received an ERC Advanced grant and lead an ITN project and was awarded the Prize Irène Joliot-Curie 2006 ``Femme Scientifique de l'année'. Her current research interests include astrochemistry and the formation of Solar-like planetary systems, where she contributes with theoretical and observational studies.
Dr Matija Cuk
SETI Institute
Biography
Matija Ćuk is Research Scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. He specialises in the orbital and rotational dynamics of the Solar System bodies, and has worked on the origin and dynamics of binary asteroids, the Earth-Moon system, and Saturn's moons and rings. He is recipient of the 2014 Harold Urey Prize awarded by the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society.
Prof. Janet E. Drew
University College London, UK
Biography
Janet Drew has been a MNRAS editor since 1995, and obtained her PhD in Astrophysics at University College London. Following her PhD she has been located at the IoA Cambridge, JILA, University of Oxford, Imperial College (where she was promoted to professor), the University of Hertfordshire, and she is now an honorary professor at University College London. Her postdoctoral research began in modelling mass loss from massive stars and disc-accreting objects, and moved on to problems in star formation, and then to broadband/H-alpha surveys of the Milky Way. Recently, her focus has returned to the demographics of massive stars, also exploiting them as probes of Galactic structure. 3-D extinction mapping is also an interest.
Prof. Mark Gieles
University of Barcelona, Spain
Biography
Mark Gieles is Icrea Research professor at the University of Barcelona. He obtained his PhD in 2006 at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and subsequently worked as a research fellow at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and the University of Cambridge. His research focusses on understanding the formation and dynamical evolution of dense stellar systems within the context of galaxy formation, with support from a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (URF) and a Starting Grant of the European Research Council (ERC). He joined the editorial board of MNRAS in 2017.
Prof. David Kaplan
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA
David Kaplan received his bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and his doctorate from the California Institute of Technology. After postdoctoral work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Santa Barbara he joined the faculty in the Department of Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2010. His research interests are in multi-wavelength (radio, infrared, optical, X-ray) observations of compact objects and exploration of the radio and optical time-domain.
Prof. Jorrit Leenaarts
Stockholm University, Sweden
Biography
Jorrit Leenaarts is professor of solar physics at Stockholm University and director of the Institute for Solar Physics. He obtained his his PhD in 2007 at Utrecht University. He performs research on the processes that occur in the solar photosphere, chromosphere and transition region, with a focus on chromospheric heating and radiative transfer.
Prof. Andrew R. Liddle
Instituto Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço, University of Lisbon, Portugal
Biography
Andrew Liddle is a theoretical cosmologist best known for his work on cosmological models and in particular early Universe inflation, where he was one of the pioneers of model building and of observational tests. He is the author of well over 200 refereed journal articles and four textbooks. In addition to his theoretical work he has previously been a member of the Planck Satellite collaboration and is currently a member of the Dark Energy Survey.
Prof. Claudia Maraston
University of Portsmouth
Biography
Claudia Maraston is Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Portsmouth. She is an expert in theoretical astrophysics, in particular the calculation of theoretical spectra for stellar populations. She has been awarded the 2018 Eddington Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society for her 'work of outstanding merit in theoretical astrophysics'.
Prof. Timothy J. Pearson
California Institute of Technology, USA (retired)
Biography
Timothy J. Pearson has spent most of his career as a radio astronomer at the California Institute of Technology. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1977, after which he held a postdoctoral position at Caltech, and later was a Research Professor of Radio Astronomy. His research interests include active galactic nuclei, the statistics of radio sources, Galactic diffuse emission, and the cosmic microwave background radiation.
Prof. Joop Schaye
Leiden Observatory, The Netherlands
Biography
After completing his PhD studies at the University of Cambridge, Joop Schaye became a long-term member of the institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and in 2005 he joined the faculty at Leiden University. His research interests range from the interstellar medium to cosmology and span both theory and observation. In recent years he has focused on simulations of galaxy formation and observations of the circumgalactic medium.
Dr Alessandro Sozzetti
Torino Astrophysical Observatory
Biography
Alessandro Sozzetti gained his degree in Physics from Università degli Studi di Torino, Italy in 1997. He was a Research Scholar at the Space Telescope Science Institute between 1998 and 2000, and then he went on to obtain a PhD in Physics from the University of Pittsburgh, USA in 2005. He worked at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics between 2002 and 2008, first as an SAO Pre-Doctoral Fellow and then as a Visiting Scientist. He is presently a Senior Researcher (Level II) at INAF, leading the exoplanet research group at the Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino. His research interests are focused on the detection and physical characterization of extrasolar planetary systems. His expertise encompasses high-resolution stellar spectroscopy, photometry, and high-precision astrometry. He has leading roles in several large-scale projects aimed at exoplanet detection and characterization with cutting-edge ground-based instrumentation (HARPS-N, GIARPS, ESPRESSO) and space-borne observatories (Gaia, TESS, PLATO, ARIEL). An appointed member of INAF's Scientific Council, he has served as Chair, co-Chair, and SOC member of several major international conferences and workshops. He has co-authored 135 refereed journal papers, including one review article, and he is contributor to or editor of seven collective volumes.
Prof. Martin J. Ward
University of Durham, UK
Biography
Martin Ward holds the Temple Chevallier Chair of Astronomy at Durham University. He obtained his DPhil from Sussex University based on research at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, Herstmonceux Castle. He was the first graduate student to obtain his thesis observations from the then Anglo Australian Telescope. He has held Fellowships at Clare Hall, Cambridge, St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, and is currently a Founding Fellow of University College, Durham. His research is on studies of active galactic nuclei, and he is a team member of JWST’s mid-infrared instrument MIRI. He is also keen on outreach activities, and gives public lectures as well as guest contributions to radio and TV science programmes.
Prof. Anna L. Watts
University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Biography
Anna Watts is Professor of High Energy Astrophysics at the University of Amsterdam, working primarily on neutron stars. Originally from the UK, she completed her Bachelors at the University of Oxford and her PhD at the University of Southampton, holding postdoctoral positions at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (USA) and the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (Germany) before moving to the Netherlands in 2008.
Prof. Simon D.M. White
Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, Germany
Biography
Born in the UK, Simon White has worked since 1994 at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, near Munich. He is interested in the growth and statistical properties of cosmic structure, the formation, evolution and clustering of galaxies, and the nature and distribution of dark matter. He has pioneered many aspects of the use of numerical simulations to study these topics.
Prof. Ralph A.M.J. Wijers
University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Biography
Prof. Wijers is an expert in multi-wavelength emission from extreme explosions, with a focus on gamma-ray bursts and new unknown radio transients. In the recent past he focused on wide-field searches for new radio transients with LOFAR, and on modelling the physics of gamma-ray bursts in detail. He is exploring methods to connect observations of gamma-ray bursts more directly to their basic physics. Wijers is an NWO vici and ERC Advanced Grant laureate, co-investigator of various large instrument projects and member of the Royal Netherlands and European Academies of Arts and Sciences. He is a former director of the Anton Pannekoek Institute and chair of the Raad voor de Astronomie (National Astronomy Strategic Planning Council) and co-editor of two decadal plans for Dutch astronomy. He is an editor of Monthly Notices, arXiv physics editor and arXiv editor in chief. He was awarded the EU Descartes Prize with an international team for his work on gamma-ray bursts. He has advised over 50 PhD candidates.
Prof. Diana M. Worrall
University of Bristol, UK
Biography
Diana Worrall is Professor of Physics at the University of Bristol. She is prominent for work on galaxies whose active nuclei eject jets to distances far beyond their stars, and which shine brightly through synchrotron and inverse-Compton radiation. Her earlier research spanned diverse topics in high-energy astrophysics, and she is known for discovery work on the X-ray ridge. She spent much of her career working in the USA, and is a past President of the Division of High Energy Astrophysics and Fundamental Physics of the International Astronomical Union.
