Michael Garrett (astronomer)

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Michael (Mike) Garrett (born 1964) is a Scottish astronomer. He has been the Director of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics [1] since September 2016. [2] He was previously the General Director of ASTRON, part of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research. [3]

Contents

Personal life

He was born in Kilwinning, North Ayrshire, Scotland, and brought up in nearby Saltcoats, on the west coast.[ citation needed ]

Education

He went to St. Mary's (1969–1976) and St. Andrew's RC schools (1976–1982). He graduated with first-class honours at the University of Glasgow (1982–1986). He studied for his PhD at Jodrell Bank Observatory, University of Manchester (1986–1990), supervised by Dennis Walsh.[ citation needed ]

Career

He started work at the Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe (JIVE) in 1996, working on support for the European VLBI Network. He became the director of JIVE in 2003, and over the course of his four-year tenure the number of employees at the institute doubled from 20 to 40. [4] On 1 February 2007 he became the General Director of ASTRON, part of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research. [3] [4] He was one of 14 winners of the 2013 IBM Faculty Award. [5] He became the inaugural Sir Bernard Lovell Chair of Astrophysics and the Director of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics in September 2016. [1] [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jodrell Bank Observatory</span> Astronomical observatory in Cheshire, England

Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire, England hosts a number of radio telescopes as part of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. The observatory was established in 1945 by Bernard Lovell, a radio astronomer at the university, to investigate cosmic rays after his work on radar in the Second World War. It has since played an important role in the research of meteoroids, quasars, pulsars, masers, and gravitational lenses, and was heavily involved with the tracking of space probes at the start of the Space Age.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Very-long-baseline interferometry</span> Comparing widely separated telescope wavefronts

Very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) is a type of astronomical interferometry used in radio astronomy. In VLBI a signal from an astronomical radio source, such as a quasar, is collected at multiple radio telescopes on Earth or in space. The distance between the radio telescopes is then calculated using the time difference between the arrivals of the radio signal at different telescopes. This allows observations of an object that are made simultaneously by many radio telescopes to be combined, emulating a telescope with a size equal to the maximum separation between the telescopes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bernard Lovell</span> English physicist and radio astronomer (1913–2012)

Sir Alfred Charles Bernard Lovell was an English physicist and radio astronomer. He was the first director of Jodrell Bank Observatory, from 1945 to 1980.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jan Oort</span> Dutch astronomer (1900–1992)

Jan Hendrik Oort was a Dutch astronomer who made significant contributions to the understanding of the Milky Way and who was a pioneer in the field of radio astronomy. The New York Times called him "one of the century's foremost explorers of the universe"; the European Space Agency website describes him as "one of the greatest astronomers of the 20th century" and states that he "revolutionised astronomy through his ground-breaking discoveries." In 1955, Oort's name appeared in Life magazine's list of the 100 most famous living people. He has been described as "putting the Netherlands in the forefront of postwar astronomy."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MERLIN</span> Observatory

The Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network (MERLIN) is an interferometer array of radio telescopes spread across England. The array is run from Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire by the University of Manchester on behalf of UK Research and Innovation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Square Kilometre Array</span> Radio telescope under construction in Australia and South Africa

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is an intergovernmental international radio telescope project being built in Australia (low-frequency) and South Africa (mid-frequency). The combining infrastructure, the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO), and headquarters, are located at the Jodrell Bank Observatory in the United Kingdom. The SKA cores are being built in the southern hemisphere, where the view of the Milky Way galaxy is the best and radio interference is at its least.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lovell Telescope</span> Radio telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory, Cheshire, England

The Lovell Telescope is a radio telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory, near Goostrey, Cheshire, in the north-west of England. When construction was finished in 1957, the telescope was the largest steerable dish radio telescope in the world at 76.2 m (250 ft) in diameter; it is now the third-largest, after the Green Bank telescope in West Virginia, United States, and the Effelsberg telescope in Germany. It was originally known as the "250 ft telescope" or the Radio Telescope at Jodrell Bank, before becoming the Mark I telescope around 1961 when future telescopes were being discussed. It was renamed to the Lovell Telescope in 1987 after Sir Bernard Lovell, and became a Grade I listed building in 1988. The telescope forms part of the MERLIN and European VLBI Network arrays of radio telescopes.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">ASTRON</span>

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Sir Henry Charles Husband, often known as H. C. Husband, was a leading British civil and consulting engineer from Sheffield, England, who designed bridges and other major civil engineering works. He is particularly known for his work on the Jodrell Bank radio telescopes; the first of these was the largest fully steerable radio telescope in the world on its completion in 1957. Other projects he was involved in designing include the Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station's aerials, one of the earliest telecobalt radiotherapy units, Sri Lanka's tallest building, and the rebuilding of Robert Stephenson's Britannia Bridge after a fire. He won the Royal Society's Royal Medal and the Wilhelm Exner Medal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gart Westerhout</span> Dutch-American astronomer (1927–2012)

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This is a timeline of Jodrell Bank Observatory.

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The Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester, is among the largest astrophysics groups in the UK. It includes the Jodrell Bank Observatory, the MERLIN/VLBI National Facility, and the Jodrell Bank Visitor Centre. The centre was formed after the merger of the Victoria University of Manchester and UMIST which brought two astronomy groups together. The Jodrell Bank site also hosts the headquarters of the SKA Observatory (SKAO) - the International Governmental Organisation (IGO) tasked with the delivery and operation of the Square Kilometre Array, created on the signing of the Rome Convention in 2019. The SKA will be the largest telescope in the world - construction is expected to start at the end of this decade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spektr-R</span> Russian satellite

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Harvey Raymond Butcher III is an astronomer who has made significant contributions in observational astronomy and instrumentation which have advanced understanding of the formation of stars and of the universe. He received a B.Sc. in Astrophysics from the California Institute of Technology in 1969, where he contributed to the development of advanced infrared spectrometry applied in the first survey of the sky at infrared wavelengths.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sardinia Radio Telescope</span> Radio telescope

The Sardinia Radio Telescope (SRT) is 64-metre fully steerable radio telescope near San Basilio, Province of Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy. Completed in 2011, it is a collaboration between the Istituto di Radioastronomia di Bologna, the Cagliari Observatory (Cagliari) and the Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory (Florence).

Richard John Davis, OBE, FRAS was a radio astronomer for the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester.

Teresa Mary Anderson is a British physicist and the director of the University of Manchester's Discovery Centre at Jodrell Bank Observatory. She is a professor at the University of Manchester and the curator of science at the Bluedot Festival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anton Zensus</span> German radio astronomer (born 1958)

Johann Anton Zensus is a German radio astronomer. He is director at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) and honorary professor at the University of Cologne. He is chairman of the collaboration board of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). The collaboration announced the first image of a black hole in April 2019.

References

  1. 1 2 "ASTRON-directeur Michael Garret wordt nieuwe directeur Jodrell Bank" (in Dutch). 31 January 2016. Retrieved 5 February 2016.
  2. 1 2 "New Director of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics". September 2016. Archived from the original on 8 September 2017. Retrieved 10 January 2018.
  3. 1 2 "Board - ASTRON" . Retrieved 5 February 2016.
  4. 1 2 "European VLBI Network Newsletter". January 2007. Retrieved 5 February 2016.
  5. "IBM Narrows Big Data Skills Gap By Partnering With More Than 1,000 Global Universities". IMB. 14 August 2013. Retrieved 5 February 2016.