Professor Bryan Gaensler, an astronomer and Australian Research Council Federation Fellow in the School of Physics at The University of Sydney, is among 15 researchers to be awarded a fellowship under the Australian Laureate Fellowship Scheme. The scheme is designed to support excellence in research by attracting world-class researchers and research leaders to key positions and creating new rewards and incentives for the application of their talents in Australia.
Professor Gaensler's current research interests focus on magnetism in interstellar space, the demographics of neutron stars and black holes in our Milky Way, and the identification of variable and transient sources of radio emission.
Professor Gaensler will use his fellowship grant to help demonstrate the viability of technologies that could be used in the Square Kilometre Array, the world's most sensitive radio-telescope.
His project proposes to dramatically improve our understanding of the nature and origin of magnetic fields using the unique capabilities of the ASKAP. With the resulting data, Professor Gaensler aims to transform our understanding of magnetic fields in galaxies, clusters and in diffuse intergalactic gas and thus be able to address key unanswered questions on Milky Way ecology, galaxy evolution and cosmology.
Professor Gaensler is the Editor-in-Chief of Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, and was formerly the International Project Scientist for the Square Kilometre Array.