Dr Ian Kemp

I am a PhD student at ICRAR/Curtin, under the CSIRO iPhD program, with DUG technology in Perth as my industry partner.  The topic of my PhD is ‘The Application of Commercial Supercomputing to Next Generation Radio Astronomy’. I’m researching the potential of commercial supercomputing via astronomy case studies, including a search for Fast Radio Bursts in archived MWA data, and the processing of images of HI using Joint Deconvolution technique, for the GASKAP collaboration, using data from the ASKAP telescope.

Prior to my PhD I completed a Masters in Astronomy at Swinburne University, and worked for two years as an Hon. Research Assistant at ICRAR/UWA. While at UWA I carried out additional work on two projects I’d done during my masters, a study of the super-outbursts of the cataclysmic variable system VW Hyi, and a study of the potential for capture of rocks and primordial dust at Earth’s L4 and L5 Lagrange points.

=== Astronomy Publications =====

First Author papers:

• The 2019 Super-Outburst of VW Hyi, Variable Stars South 2020-07.  https://www.variablestarssouth.org/vss-newsletter-july-2020/nl_2020-3.pdf
• An image-based blind search for Fast Radio Bursts in 88 hours of data from the EoR0 field, with the Murchison Widefield Array – The Astronomical Journal, Volume 168, 2024, Issue 4, id.153, 10 pp.  10.3847/1538-3881/ad6f9c
• Processing of GASKAP pilot survey data using a commercial supercomputer – Astronomy & Computing, Volume 51, 2024, 100901, 10pp. 10.1016/j.ascom.2024.100901
• The Application of Commercial Supercomputing to Next Generation Radio Astronomy – in prep, expect to Submit late 2024.

Contributing Author papers:

• Local HI Absorption towards the Magellanic Cloud foreground using ASKAP – Hiep Nguyen, Naomi McLure-Griffiths, James Dempsey, et al., MNRAS, Oct 2024.  10.1093/mnras/stae2274
• Theoretical Considerations with Stacking Absorption Spectra and Spatial Properties of Cold and Unstable HI Gas in Cirrus Region of the Milky Way – in review, submitted to MNRAS – Lead Author Callum Lynn
• Multi-phase HI clouds in the Small Magellanic Cloud halo – in review, submitted to Astronomy & Astrophysics – Lead Author Frances Buckland-Willis

Not Astronomy:

• 6 Journal Papers, 9 Conference Presentations, 38 Industry Technical reports in Metallurgy

=== Academic Qualifications =====

2019: M.Sc. Astronomy, Swinburne University of Technology. Top student in ‘Computational Astrophysics’

2017: Grad. Dip. Astronomy, Swinburne University of Technology. Top student in ‘Tools of Modern Astronomy’

1985: Ph.D., Metallurgy, University of Leeds

1982: B.Sc. Hons. Class I, Metallurgy, University of Leeds. Winner of the prize for top student.