Dr O. Ivy Wong

Dr Ivy Wong is an Australian research astronomer who is a CSIRO science leader and also an adjunct senior research fellow at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) hosted by the University of Western Australia.

Dr Wong studies the physical mechanisms that drive galaxy evolution in nearby galaxies. The open questions that she currently studies are: how do galaxies get gas to form stars; how central supermassive black holes grow (AGN); what is the impact of AGN versus the impact of a galaxy’s environment in shaping the star formation history and evolution of a galaxy. Ivy is primarily a radio astronomer (specialising in large all-sky surveys of atomic Hydrogen and radio continuum), who is also an expert in observations using space-based telescopes in the ultraviolet and infrared, as well as ground-based optical imaging and spectroscopy.

In preparation for the upcoming start of the next-generation radio surveys, Ivy’s current research interests include the development of alternative techniques such as citizen science and applications of machine learning algorithms to help tackle the big deluge of data that we are expecting from these next-generation radio telescopes and surveys.

Ivy currently leads the Radio Galaxy Zoo citizen science project that is publishing new discoveries from archival data that dates back nearly 20 years. Ivy obtained her PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Melbourne in 2008 and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University (USA) and an ARC Super Science Fellow at CSIRO Astronomy & Space Science (Sydney) prior to moving to ICRAR/UWA for a second Super Science Fellowship and now back to CSIRO in Perth.

Ivy received her PhD from the University of Melbourne in 2008.  She then worked at Yale University and CSIRO (Sydney) before moving to ICRAR/UWA (Perth).  Ivy can normally be found on Twitter at @owning_ivy.

For more information on her research and recent publications, please visit Ivy’s personal webpage or her CSIRO Profile!