Our next meeting for 2018 will be on:
Tues 19 June at 7.00pm
“Untangling the cosmic web: the joys (and frustrations) of an observational astronomer”
Dr Meghan Gray, Associate Professor School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Nottingham
Dr Meghan Gray was born and raised in Halifax, Canada. She studied Physics
and Mathematics at Mount Allison University before moving to the UK for
her PhD in astronomy from Cambridge University. Following a postdoctoral
fellowship at the University of Edinburgh, she settled in Nottingham where
she is active in teaching, research, and public engagement - particularly
on social media. She is a regular presenter on the YouTube channels ‘Sixty
Symbols’ and ‘Deep Sky Videos’.
She says: “In this talk I'll describe how I've used some of the most powerful
telescopes on Earth and in space to dissect one particular corner of the
universe: a supercluster of galaxies. The aim of my research is to understand
how structure in the Universe grows on the largest scales, as well as
learning how the most crowded environments affect the galaxies inhabiting
them. I'll talk about the limitations I face as an observational astronomer
who is dependent on the photons the Universe sends my way -- and how using
supercomputers to simulate mock Universes can help us interpret the real
one.”