Chris Tinney

 
 

I'm a Professor and Discovery Outstanding Researcher at the University of New South Wales, where I head the Exoplanetary Science at UNSW group, within the Australian Centre for Astrobiology, physically located within the School of Physics.


My group currently hosts two faculty, four post-doctoral researchers and two graduate students, working on projects ranging from the search for exoplanets orbiting Sun-like main sequence stars (the Anglo-Australian Planet Search), the search for exoplanets around evolved stars more massive than the Sun (Rob Wittenmyer's Pan-Pacific Planet Search), a high intensity search for terrestrial-mass planets orbiting the two components of the nearest star (alpha Cen A and B), direct imaging observations of already known long-period companions to Anglo-Australian Planet Search stars, follow-up of transit candidates from the HAT-South planet search, and hunting for planetary-mass methane dwarfs in nearby young star clusters.


We are also actively pursuing new technologies for searching for exoplanets - especially the use of image slicing fibre technologies for improving spectrograph performance, the use of astrophotonic technologies for removing spatial information from the entrance apertures of astronomical spectrographs, and breaking the current cost-paradigms for high-resolution spectrographs on large aperture telescopes.


We work closely with colleagues within the Australian Centre for Astrobiology to examine the impacts of our exoplanetary discoveries on the question of habitable environments outside the Solar System - especially with the members of Prof. Jeremy Bailey's Planetary Science group, here within the Astrophysics Department.


 


Current Position:

Discovery Outstanding Researcher, School of Physics, UNSW.


Leader of the Exoplanetary Science at UNSW group.


Deputy Director, Australian Centre for Astrobiology, UNSW.



Education:

  1. •PhD (Astronomy), 1992, Caltech

  2. •BSc (Hons), 1986, U. Sydney


Past Positions:

  1. •ARC Australian Professorial Fellow (2007-2012)

  2. •Head of Astronomy, Anglo-Australian Observatory (2001-7)

  3. •Research Astronomer, Anglo-Australian Observatory (1994-2001)

  4. •European Southern Observatory Fellow (1992-1994)



Publications

(generated from NASA ADS system)

  1. •Referreed papers

  2. •All papers


General Research Interests

  1. •Extra-solar planets - Sun-like stars, sub-giants

  2. •Extra-solar planet follow-up - Rossiter-McLaughlin effect measurement, transit planet atmosphere measurement

  3. •Brown dwarfs

  4. •CCD/IR array astrometry

  5. •Methane infrared imaging

  6. •Wide-field surveys

  7. •Galaxy proper motions


General Instrumentation Interests

  1. •Doppler velocities at m/s precision

  2. •Astrophotonics for high-resolution spectrscopy

  3. •Infrared imaging and spectroscopy

  4. •Optical Imaging and spectroscopy

  5. •Infrared precision velocities

  6. •Echelle spectroscopy

  7. •Tuneable Filter imaging

  8. •Charge Shuffling

  9. •Sapphire Grisms

  10. •AAO CCD non-linearity.


Relevant Links

  1. •Exoplanetary Science at UNSW

  2. •Dept. of Astrophysics at UNSW

  3. •School of Physics at UNSW







Why I like my job:

Because every day there is the possibility that I will find out something about the Universe that no human being has ever known before.




Other Stuff I Like ....


Footy Team: Sydney Swans


Authors: Jack Vance, Iain Banks, Richard Morgan, China Miéville, Charles Stross, John Scalzi, Neal Stephenson, Gene Wolfe


Books: Night Lamp by Jack Vance, Against a Dark Background by Iain Banks, The City and the City by China Miéville


Science Writing: The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett


Composer: Gustav Mahler

Piece: Mahler's Symphony No. 2 (and especially the spine-tingling performances of lieder-specialist mezzo Christianne Stotijn)


Cafe: Single Origin. My neighbourhood cafe, and (I maintain) the best coffee to be had in Sydney.


Restaraunt: Becasse - now sadly defunct! They used to be our neighbourhood "diner" many years ago. The food was spectacular.


Interests: Italy, Venice, Byzantium


Some Links

  1. •RealFooty

  2. •David Mitchell at The Grauniad

  3. •Good Show Sir ... hilarious SF book covers




"Decisions are made by those who turn up." - Jed Bartlett.

 

About my work ....

I grew up in the south-western suburbs of Sydney, attending St Patrick's College, Strathfield before doing a Science degree in Physics at the University of Sydney.


In 1987 I moved to Pasadena, CA to do a PhD in astronomy at the California Institute of Technology. Although I did small research projects there in VLBI, single-dish and inteferometer mm observations of ultra-luminous infrared galaxies, and IRAS infrared photometry of Asymptotic Giant Branch stars in the LMC, I eventually settled on a PhD project hunting for brown dwarfs (working with Neill Reid and Jeremy Mould).


Sadly, I didn't actually find brown dwarfs in the survey I did for my thesis, but I had a lot of fun trying. We also learned a lot more about M-dwarfs than we had known up until then, and I learned a lot about wide-field imaging surveys, infrared and optical photometry and spectroscopy, and doing astrometry with CCDs.


In 1992, I moved countries again to take up a Fellowship at the European Southern Observatory Headquarters in Garching, Germany. I continued working on brown dwarfs and CCD astrometry there (and indeed have done so to this day).


In 1994, I moved back to Australia as a Research Astronomer at the Anglo-Australian Observatory. I stayed on at the AAO for just over 12 years - for the first half of it as an AAO support astronomer, and for the last half of it as Head of Astronomy (and so managed the support astronomers). While at the AAO I got progressively more and more involved in exoplanetary research, and that has become the largest focus of my work today.


More personally ....


I am a compulsive reader - mainly of history and science fiction. Though not so much of the latter these days - as I get older, finding new writers I like (and haven't already "read out") becomes harder and harder.


I listen to a lot of BBC Radio 4, ABC Radio National and (when I can find the time and a quiet environment) classical music.

About me ....