Mr Hugh Roxburgh

Hey! I’m Hugh, a first year PhD student at the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy, working with Clancy James, Apurba Bera, Chris Power, and the CRAFT collaboration.

I previously worked in optical transient astronomy as a student at the University of Canterbury, and have now pivoted to investigating Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs). These exciting explosions are among the most mysterious astrophysical phenomena we know of, and the more we discover about them, the more they reveal their potential for groundbreaking cosmological analysis.

My research involves investigating the galaxies these FRBs originate from in order to better understand how they can be used to measure the expansion of the Universe. I use data from the ASKAP, MeerKAT, and GMRT radio observatories to probe neutral hydrogen emission, and also use large cosmological simulations to explore how observations change depending on the strength of various implemented physical processes.

While I probably shouldn’t, I’m also very much involved in continued work with my group back in New Zealand, particularly using the TESS space telescope to discover all kinds of transient events. A paper of mine more than tripled the known sample size of gamma-ray burst afterglows detected by TESS, and currently we are running one of the largest untargeted transient searches to date with the hope of finding some incredibly rare events such as kilonovae or orphan GRB afterglows.

Beyond my research, I love getting outdoors for a hike or a beach trip, as well as playing football, basketball, and cricket. I also play and make a lot of mediocre music in my spare time.