Research

Research Interests

These pages describe my work on a technical level, suitable for other astronomers. To read about my work on a non-technical level, see the non-technical page.

My work is focused on observational extragalactic astronomy, using the techniques of data mining to perform novel science on the datasets of large digital sky surveys. In particular, I have worked on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, COSMOS, and the Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey.

Summary of topics:

• The galaxy luminosity function

• Data-intensive investigation of terascale astronomical datasets using the techniques of data mining, astroinformatics, and machine learning

• Photometric redshifts

• Galaxy morphology and classification

• Properties of galaxies, quasars, and other active galactic nuclei as a function of environment

Research Highlights

A summary of research highlights from my work is given here.

Research Projects

HIA (2009-2012)

• CANFAR+Skytree: The World's First Science Analytics Cloud

• The faint end of the galaxy luminosity function in the Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey

• Photometric redshifts for the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey

• Fast data mining algorithms on the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre infrastructure

• A Guide to Data Mining in Astronomy

Illinois (2004-2009)

• Robust Machine Learning Applied to Astronomical Datasets

I: Star-Galaxy Separation in the SDSS DR3

II: Photometric Redshifts for Quasars in the SDSS DR5

III: Probabilistic Photometric Redshifts for Galaxies and Quasars in the SDSS and GALEX

• Breaking the quasar L-z degeneracy using PDF-weighted quasar-galaxy cross-correlations

• Direct assignation of probability density functions using novel supercomputing hardware

Sussex (2001-2004)

• Galaxy Types in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Using Supervised Artificial Neural Networks

• Bivariate Galaxy Luminosity Functions in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

• Galaxy Morphology, Colour and Environment in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey