CV: Richard Massey |
Royal Observatory Edinburgh Blackford Hill Edinburgh EH9 3HJ, UK +44 (0)131 668 8363 rm [at] roe.ac.uk |
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| Nationality | British | |
| Date of birth | 14 October 1977 | |
| Erdős number | 4 (P. Erdős → H.S. Shapiro → M. Tegmark → B. Jain → R. Massey) | |
| Bacon number | 3 (K. Bacon → B. Pitt → M. Freeman → R. Massey) | |
The night sky contains a huge amount of stars, galaxies and dust. Everything we see is made of the same basic "baryonic" material as our bodies, the air we breathe, and the computer that you're looking at. We understand it fairly well. However, mounting evidence from several sources now agrees that this is only a few percent of the total amount of stuff in the Universe.
Six times as much mass is in the form of invisible "dark matter". This interacts with ordinary baryons only through the force of gravity. It does not interact through electromagnetism, and therefore neither emits nor reflects light. It can be seen only indirectly — for example, because its additional gravity makes galaxies rotate faster than otherwise possible. One potential candidate for dark matter is the least massive of the (as-yet unobserved) supersymmetric particles.
Three times more common than dark matter is the even more mysterious "dark energy". This acts as a repulsive force on very large scales, in a tug-of-war against the attraction of gravity. The universe has been expanding since the Big Bang, but dark energy is now accelerating that expansion. Its properties will eventually decide the fate of the universe.
Unfortunately, almost all current scientific knowledge concerns only the (few percent) baryons. The extra ingredients are challenging our fundamental theories of particle physics and General Relativity. I'm currently focussing on the nature of dark matter, mainly via the indirect effect of "gravitational lensing". As with any new frontier, the first thing to do is to map it out and look at the lie of the land.
| 2008 → present | Royal Observatory Edinburgh: STFC Advanced Fellow (also a Visiting Associate in Astronomy at CalTech and Affiliate at NASA JPL) |
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| 2007 → 2008 | California Institute of Technology: Senior Postdoctoral Scholar |
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| 2004 → 2007 | California Institute of Technology: Postdoctoral Research Scholar |
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| 2000 → 2003 | Cambridge university, Clare college: PhD |
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| 1996 → 2000 | Durham university, University college: MSci Mathematics and Physics (1st class honours & Chalmers prize for top mark) |
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My work on dark matter maps and bullet clusters has appeared in the Guiness book of World Records, London Science Museum, Tokyo Science Museum and New York MoMA. It has also been published on the front pages of Nature, The Independent, BBC news online and apple.com, as well as in many other newspapers and magazines.
I have appeared on seven TV documentaries for National Geographic, NOVA, and cable channels Einstein TV/bluesci. I have also been interviewed by radio stations throughout the world — from the morning breakfast show on KiwiFM, to the BBC world service and NPR Science Friday. I have delivered invited public lectures at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the Royal Observatory Edinburgh, and been commissioned to write an article for BBC News Online.
As an IAU special project for the International Year of Astronomy, I took part in an expedition to the West African island of Príncipe, where Sir Arthur Eddington observed the 1919 total solar eclipse and proved General Relativity. I designed and supervised fabrication of a stainless steel informational plaque for the site, which was unveiled by President José Cassandra on the anniversary. I also designed an exhibition of which copies have now been installed on both Príncipe and São Tomé, as well as the Museo do Eclipse and a mobile exhibition touring schools in Sobral, Brazil — where Eddington's second team took additional measurements in 1919.
Closer to home, I have judged annual science fairs and visited science societies at local schools for several years. I took part in the 2003 Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in London. I have helped public observing nights at both the IoA in Cambridge and IfA in Edinburgh; hosted at the Edinburgh International Science Festival; and spoken at the Royal Society of Edinburgh workshop for early career scientists on "Managing the media".
| 2009 | Workshop supervisor for Applied Maths for Physicists undergraduate course. |
| 2008 → present | Lecturer for University of Edinburgh Physics 1A undergraduate course (>300 students). |
| 2008 → present | University of Edinburgh board of examiners. |
| 2008 → present | Supervisor of Edinburgh PhD student Rachel McInnes. |
| 2007 → 2008 | Postgraduate lecturer on gravitational lensing to CalTech and Edinburgh PhD students. |
| 2007 | Invited lecturer at SLAC Summer Institute. |
| 2004 → 2007 | Supervisor of CalTech undergraduate research fellows Will High (now PhD student at Harvard), Andy Green (now PhD student at Swinburne), Matt Ferry, Edgar Shaghoulian (now PhD student at Berkeley) and Marissa Cevallos. |
| 2004 → 2005 | Co-supervisor (with R. Ellis) for PhD student Alexie Leauthaud (now postdoc at U.C. Berkeley). |
| 2004 → 2005 | Co-supervisor (with P. Schechter) of Molly Peeples's senior/master's thesis (now PhD student at Ohio State). |
| 2002 → 2003 | Teaching assistant for undergraduate physics at Clare college, Cambridge. |
I have acquired major imaging surveys on the WHT, Keck II, Subaru and Hubble Space telescopes. Through various projects, I have also accumulated observing experience on the AAT, Keck I, UKIRT, and the UK Schmidt telescopes. Additional grants not associated with telescope time include:
I have also acted as a panel member of Time Allocation/Funding Review Committees and a referee for academic journals on both sides of the Atlantic.
| Apr 2009 | Oxford university astrophysics colloquium. |
| Mar 2009 | Portsmouth Institute for Cosmology and Gravitation colloquium. |
| Feb 2009 | University of Utah workshop on Particle astrophysics, Astronomy and Cosmology. |
| Aug 2008 | Evening public lecture at Royal Observatory Edinburgh. |
| Jun 2008 | Russian Geographical Society, St. Petersburg. |
| Apr 2008 | University of St. Andrews astronomy department colloquium. |
| Apr 2008 | Royal Observatory Edinburgh colloquium. |
| Feb 2008 | University of Minnesota astronomy department colloquium. |
| Nov 2007 | Ohio State University astronomy department colloquium. |
| Aug 2007 | NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. |
| Aug 2007 | SLAC Summer Institute. |
| Jun 2007 | Drexel university physics department colloquium. |
| Jun 2007 | Evening public lecture at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. |
| May 2007 | Texas A&M workshop on the Interconnection Between Particle Physics and Cosmology speaker and discussion panellist. |
| May 2007 | Stanford university/Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology colloquium. |
| Mar 2007 | University of Southern California physics department colloquium. |