Physical Principles of Astronomical Instrumentation, 1st Edition

Biography

Professor Peter A. R. Ade

Professor Peter Ade earned his PhD from Queen Mary College, London, in 1973, where he continued to develop a submillimetre wave instrumentation group specializing in producing state-of-the-art gadgets for use in both atmospheric and astronomical research. In 2001, he relocated to Cardiff with other colleagues to form a larger instrumentation group. He is a member of the Royal Astronomical Society and is a chartered physicist with the Institute of Physics. He has over forty years’ experience in instrumentation design and manufacture while pursuing his observational astrophysics and atmospheric science pursuits. He has been involved with the development and deployment of many astronomical devices including ISO-LWS, Cassini-CIRS, Mars-PMIRR, SPT-pol, ACT-pol, EBEX, Pilot, BLAST, SCUBA, SCUBA-2, Spitzer, Herschel-SPIRE and Planck-HFI). In 1994, he was awarded a NASA public service medal for his contributions to fundamental advances in far infrared detector and sensor systems, which enabled crucial measurements of atmospheric ozone chemistry. In 2009, he was presented with the Royal Astronomical Society Jackson-Gwilt Medal for contributions to astronomical instrumentation.

Professor Matt Griffin

Professor Matt Griffin studied Electrical Engineering at Faculty College Dublin and Astrophysics at Queen Mary College London, receiving his PhD in 1985. His research work has included the development of devices for both ground-based and space-borne observatories, and their use in the study of planetary atmospheres, star formation, galaxy evolution. He remained at Queen Mary until 2001, and was involved in various ground-based submillimetre devices and in ESA’s Infrared Space Observatory. Since 2001, he has been with the Astronomy Instrumentation Group at Cardiff Faculty. Along with participating in the SCUBA, SCUBA-2, and Planck-HFI devices, he was the Principal Investigator for the Herschel-SPIRE satellite instrument, for which he was awarded the Royal Astronomical Society Jackson-Gwilt Medal in 2011. He is a Fellow if the Institute of Physics and a Fellow of the Found Society of Wales.

Professor Carole Tucker

Professor Carole Tucker studied Physics and Maths at Learning College, then Medical Radiation Physics at Queen Mary and Westfield College, London, completing her PhD in 2001. Having undertaken a significant amount of cleanroom device fabrication and spectroscopy work, she took her first post-doctoral position with the Astronomy Instrumentation Group at QMW, working on equipment provision and characterization for the Herschel and Planck satellite missions. In 2001, she moved with the instrumentation group to Cardiff Faculty, where she took her first academic position in 2006. Carole manages the quasi-optical filter manufacturing facility at Cardiff, which leads to involvement with a significant amount of international FIR space and ground-based instrument teams. Additionally, she works with industry, supplying technology to scientific disciplines outside of astronomy. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, the Royal Astronomical Society and of the Found Society of Wales.