Dr Emma Alexander

Profile

I did my PhD in Radio Astronomy at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, University of Manchester, graduating in 2022. After continuing with a few short-term postdocs at Manchester, I briefly left astronomy to work as a public sector statistician. I joined the University of Leeds in November 2024. 

Research interests

I am currently a Research Fellow at the University of Leeds working on Galactic radio filaments with Prof. Mark Thompson. Filamentary structures are seen in many astronomical structures, but particularly curious are the non-thermal filaments (NTFs) seen by radio telescopes. They have been observed near our Galactic Centre for over 40 years (see for example the stunning MeerKAT radio telescope image here), and have recently been observed elswhere in the Galactic Plane by the SARAO MeerKAT 1.3 GHz Galactic Plane Survey. My research is following up with these observations.

I was previously a Research Assistant working with Dr Paddy Leahy and Prof. Anna Scaife following on from my PhD, which was titled "Magnetic fields around Radio Galaxies". Primarily, I worked on POSSUM, the Polarisation Sky Survey of the Universe's Magnetism. POSSUM is one of the Science Surveys currently being carried out by ASKAP, the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder telescope. Another ASKAP project I have contributed to is EMU, the Evolutionary Map of the Universe. I am a co-builder of Radio Galazy Zoo: EMU. I have also recently focused on applications of Machine Learning in astronomy.

Professional memberships

• FRAS
• AFHEA