MWA – pathway to Low SKA


Speaker: Steven Tingay

Affiliation: Curtin University

Time: Tuesday 09/09/2014 from 13:00 to 14:00

Venue: Access Grid UWS. Presented from Penrith (Y239), accessible from Parramatta (EB.1.32) and Campbelltown (26.1.50).

Abstract: I will discuss a new radio telescope that has been constructed in remote Western Australia, the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA). The MWA is the first of three official precursors for the multi-billion dollar Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project to be fully operational for science. I'll give an overview of what the MWA is teaching us about our Solar System, or Galaxy, and the Universe and how the
science and engineering of the MWA will blaze a path to the SKA.

Biography: Prof. Steven Tingay is a Western Australian Premier's Research Fellow, Director of the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy, Deputy Director of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, and Director of the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) project. Steven has authored or co-authored over 130 papers in international refereed journals and has attracted over $80m of research funding over the last decade. His main interests are in radio astronomy and astrophysics. He has been responsible for the development of instrumentation and software that is now used around the world. Steven currently leads the MWA project, a $50m international radio telescope recently completed and brought into its operational phase in the remote Murchison region of Western Australia. The MWA is the low frequency Precursor for the multi-billion dollar Square Kilometre Array (SKA) and he has been an active contributor to the international SKA project for the last decade. Steven is an alumnus of The University of Melbourne and of the Australian National University.