Swinburne wins two Future Fellowships

Two astronomy researchers at Swinburne have been awarded Australian Research Council Future Fellowships worth a total of $1,359,334.

Dr Deanne Fisher has been awarded $680,000 to measure gas mass, star formation and stellar mass of turbulent disk galaxies.

Roughly 80 per cent of stars in the Universe form in turbulent, clumpy disk galaxies. Using new data from the ALMA telescope in Chile, Dr Fisher will conduct a systematic study of gas and star formation in these clumpy, turbulent disks.

The project will also use W M Keck Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope data to measure the stellar mass of clumps.

Dr Michelle Cluver will be joining Swinburne from the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. She has been awarded $679,334 for a fundamental astrophysics project that will explore the role of neutral gas in the evolution of group galaxies.

Dr Cluver will study the fuelling and cessation of star formation in the group environment.

Her project will combine expertise in mining data from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer space telescope with observations from a range of optical, radio and space telescopes.

“We are proud to see these mid-career researchers recognised for their expertise in one of Swinburne’s areas of focus,” says Swinburne Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Development), Professor Aleksandar Subic.

“Our astrophysics research has contributed to Swinburne being ranked among the world’s top 100 universities in the field of physics by the prestigious Academic Ranking of World Universities.”

The Future Fellowships scheme supports research in areas of critical national importance by giving outstanding researchers incentives to conduct their research in Australia.

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