The AAO's Distinguished Visitor Scheme aims to strengthen and enhance the AAO's visibility both locally and internationally, and to provide opportunities for AAO staff to benefit from longer term collaborative visits by distinguished international colleagues. The AAO will typically award a small number of Distinguished Visitorships annually.
2012 AAO Distinguished Visitors
- Professor Bon-Chul Koo,
(Seoul National University), visiting March-May 2012.
Prof. Koo (hosted by Andrew Hopkins) will be working with AAO staff on supernova remnants and luminous blue variable stars in the Milky Way and the Large Magellanic Cloud, using data from the IRIS2 instrument on the AAT. - Dr Francesca Primas,
(ESO), visiting June-July 2012.
Dr Primas (fprimas - @ - eso.org; hosted by Gayandhi De Silva) will be working with AAO staff on understanding stellar chemical abundances and their impact on planet formation within the Milky Way, using high resolution optical spectroscopy. - Associate Professor Christopher Stockdale,
(Marquette University), visiting March-June 2012.
A. Prof. Stockdale (hosted by Stuart Ryder) will be working with AAO staff on monitoring and understanding the origins of supernovae using observations from Gemini and ATCA.
The next application deadline for AAO Distinguished Visitors is 31 March 2012
for Visits during July 2012 to June 2013.
The requirements of the AAO Distinguished Visitor Scheme, and the application process, are as follows:
Applications must be emailed to the Head of AAT Science, with an annual deadline of 31 March, for visits in the following July-to-June period.- Distinguished visitors will spend a minimum of one month at the AAO, with no fixed maximum visit extent. In practice, visits longer than about six months will require additional funding support from other sources. Matching funding from other sources will be viewed favourably in the ranking of applications.
- Each Visitorship will be worth a maximum of $20000 (for a Visit of around six months), or less if multiple Visitorships are awarded. This funding can be used to cover a round-trip economy air ticket and all or part of accomodation and living expenses. Since co-contributions are usually expected from other sources, the maximum rate of reimbursement for expenses other than the air ticket is restricted to $3500 per calendar month, averaged over the visit. Subject to this maximum reimbursement rate, the funds will be paid by way of reimbursement of expenses (receipts required) or, alternatively, in the case of accomodation and meal expenses by per diem. Booking and prepayment of the air ticket by the AAO may be possible.
- Each Visitor must give at least one colloquium at the AAO, and is strongly encouraged to give a colloquium at another astronomy research organisation in Australia. Visitors are also encouraged to give a scientific talk to the general public in Sydney. The AAO will assist in the organisation of public talks.
- Applicants must be sponsored by and agree to work with an AAO astronomer (or astronomers).
- Applications must include concise statements of the research to be undertaken by the Visitor and the tangible benefits to the AAO's research programs which will flow from the visit (1-2 sides of an A4 page), the Visitor's curriculum vitae, a budget with reasonable details of the funds requested, and a supporting statement written by the sponsoring researcher within the AAO (1 side of an A4 page). Applications must state the period for which the Visitorship is desired.
- Applications will be assessed by the Head of AAT Science and the Australian Gemini Scientist following input from the Executive Officer and Director, who will adjudicate in cases of conflict of interest. The rankings will be based on (i) the benefit to the AAO's research programs and status, (ii) the academic record of the applicant, and (iii) the significance of the proposed research, all approximately equally weighted. Some preference will be given to applicants supporting their visit through independent funding sources. No award will be made if no applications are of sufficient merit.
- If a Visitorship is not taken up within 3 months of the final date specified in the application, then the funding offer will lapse.
- The sponsoring researcher from the AAO will provide a report to the Head of AAT Science and the Newsletter Editor detailing the outcomes of the visit and the benefits to the AAO, within three months of the completion of the visit by the AAO Distinguished Visitor.
AAO Distinguished Visitor awards in earlier years
2011
- Dr Peter Barnes,
(University of Florida), visiting September-October 2011.
Dr Barnes (hosted by Stuart Ryder) will be working with AAO staff on understanding star formation within the Milky Way, using infrared observations of known cold, dense gas clumps identified through the CHaMP survey. - Dr Claudio Melo,
(ESO), visiting November-December 2011.
Dr Melo (hosted by Gayandhi De Silva) will be working with AAO staff on understanding the origins and formation processes of stellar clusters within the Milky Way. - Professor Jeremy Mould,
(University of Melbourne), visiting February-March 2011.
Prof. Mould (hosted by Matthew Colless) will be working with AAO staff on mapping the dark matter distribution using the 6dFGS. - Professor John Peacock,
(University of Edinburgh), visiting April 2011.
Prof. Peacock (hosted by Andrew Hopkins) will be working with AAO staff on cosmological measurements from the GAMA survey. - Dr Jason Spyromilio,
(ESO), visiting January-July 2011.
Dr Spyromilio (hosted by Chris Lidman) will be working with AAO staff on measurements of nearby and distant supernovae, as well as various instrumentation projects.
2010
- Associate Professor Andrew Connolly,
(University of Washington), visiting 23 July - 31 August 2010.
Prof. Connolly will be working with AAO staff on new techniques for the classification of spectra using spectroscopic survey data, and the creation of a simulation framework for designing future photometric and spectroscopic surveys. - Professor Richard Ellis,
(Caltech), visiting 6-25 September 2010.
Prof. Ellis will engage with AAO staff in a program of identifying which multiwavelength photometric and spectroscopic observables most strongly constrain the shape of the stellar initial mass function for star clusters, galaxies, and galaxy populations. - Professor David Koo,
(UCO Lick Observatory, and UC Santa Cruz),
visiting 7 July - 14 August 2010.
Prof. Koo, who is a leader of the AEGIS multiwavelength survey, will work with AAO staff in comparing measurements from the AEGIS survey with those from the GAMA survey on the AAT, to explore evolutionary trends in galaxies spanning more than half of the age of the Universe. - Assistant Professor Kim-Vy Tran,
(Texas A&M University), visiting 3 July - 3 August2010.
Prof. Tran will be collaborating with AAO staff on a project to spatially map the kinematics and stellar populations of Brightest Cluster Galaxies in the nearby Universe.