Career
In 1995,Gibson was awarded an NSERC Research Fellowship which he held for three years at the Australian National University. Following his research fellowship,Gibson joined the University of Colorado as a Research Associate,before joining Swinburne University of Technology as a professor of astrophysics in 2000;during his tenure at Swinburne,Gibson also served as deputy director to the newly formed Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing,and Deputy Head for the School of Biological Sciences and Electrical Engineering. In 2006,Gibson was appointed chair in Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Central Lancashire. [3] Gibson joined the University of Hull in 2015,where he was responsible for the establishment of the E.A. Milne Centre for Astrophysics and,from 2017 to 2024,served as the Head of the Department of Physics and Mathematics. [4]
Gibson served as a member of United Kingdom's Research Excellence Framework 2021 Physics Sub-Panel, [5] the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics Advisory Panel,a Trustee for the Spacelink Learning Foundation,and Vice-President of the Astronomical Society of Australia. He sat on the advisory board of YobiMinds Ltd.,the Royal Society University Research Fellowship Panel,the Institute of Physics Heads of Department Steering Group,and the Scientific Editorial Board for The Astrophysical Journal. [6]
Research
Gibson and Paul Hickson designed and constructed the world's first operational Liquid Mirror Telescope Observatory,in Vancouver,Canada. [7] His PhD involved the development of software tools to aid in mapping the distribution of the chemical elements throughout the Universe. [8] With those tools,Gibson's team was able to define the Galactic Habitable Zone,the regions of our Milky Way Galaxy most likely to harbour complex biological life, [9] research that was named by the readers of National Geographic Magazine as one of the Top 10 News Stories of the Year and led to a TEDx talk on the topic of alien life. [10] As an NSERC Research Fellow at the Australian National University,Gibson led the Hubble Space Telescope Key Project on the Extragalactic Distance Scale in its use of exploding stars –supernovae –to determine the expansion rate of the Universe, [11] [12] research which led to the award of the 2009 Gruber Prize in Cosmology. Gibson was also responsible for leading the HI Parkes All-Sky Survey working group tasked with characterizing the mysterious high-velocity gas clouds which surround the Milky Way Galaxy;he and his PhD student,Mary Putman,provided the first evidence that strong gravitational forces were disrupting our closest neighbouring galaxies. [13] As a Galactic Archaeologist,Gibson's team was responsible for developing the primary paradigm which describes the emergence of thick stellar disks within a cosmological framework, [14] and subsequently saw Gibson elected a Builder of the Radial Velocity Experiment. [15] Most recently,Gibson has taken on Co-Primary Investigator status (with Changbom Park) for Horizon Run 5,an ambitious cosmological simulation of the Universe. [16]
Science advocacy
Gibson is an active schools and public outreach ambassador,delivering 100+ events and presentations annually. [17] His efforts include appearances at the Royal Institution of Great Britain,the Cheltenham Science Festival, [18] European AstroFest (opening for Brian Cox and Lucy Hawking),the British Science Festival,a TEDx talk on the search for alien life, [10] and a monthly radio spot on BBC Radio Humberside. His efforts though are focused more on Widening Participation across socio-economic boundaries, [19] with the majority of his 100+ annual events aimed at schools situated within areas of monetary deprivation. Since 2015,he has run more than 1000 events,reaching more than 60,000 people in-person,including 30,000+ students across 100 different schools. His efforts led to him being named the Institute of Physics John Porter Memorial Lecturer,the Leon Davis Lecturers (Glasgow), [20] the Ray Bootland Memorial Lecturers (Hampshire),and the Bexwyke Lecturer (Manchester). [21]
Gibson's contributions to Science Advocacy and Research led to his election to Fellow of the Institute of Physics in 2021. In 2023,Gibson was named Honorary President of the Association for Science Education. [22]
This page is based on this
Wikipedia article Text is available under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
