Congratulations to Dr Andrew Wilson

Forums General Discussion Congratulations to Dr Andrew Wilson

Viewing 20 posts - 1 through 20 (of 25 total)
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  • #625231
    Jeremy Shears
    Participant

    I wanted to share the brilliant news that Andy passed his PhD viva at the University of Exeter yesterday.

    His thesis was “ T-Tauri stars: Identification by explainable machine learning and investigation into the effects of starspots”

    Congratulations Dr Wilson!

    Jeremy

    #625312
    Grant Privett
    Participant

    Great news. Congratulations Andy.

    #625314
    Andy Wilson
    Keymaster

    Many thanks.

    The experience of doing photometry and spectroscopy, learning from fellow BAA members has been invaluable. Both helping with my application to do a PhD, and when it came to analysing observational data. The knowledge I gained from being a member of the Variable Star Section has been especially beneficial to my research into young stars. They are highly variable, and some other types of variable star can share observational features with young stars, so a broad knowledge has been very useful.

    I am fortunate to have a 3 year postdoc in star formation starting next month. Then I will switch from being a part-time to a full-time researcher.

    Best wishes,
    Andy

    • This reply was modified 2 weeks, 4 days ago by Andy Wilson.
    #625316
    Robin Leadbeater
    Participant

    Congratulations Andy !

    #625317
    Mr Ian David Sharp
    Participant

    Well done Andy!

    Marvellous news.

    Ian.

    #625325
    Michael O’Connell
    Participant

    Good man Andy!
    Well done!

    #625326
    Rob Januszewski
    Participant

    Well done – Dr Wilson!

    Rob

    #625327
    John Thorpe
    Participant

    Congratulations Andy!

    #625328
    Alex Pratt
    Participant

    Well done Dr Andy, and best wishes for your career as a postdoc. 🙂

    Alex.

    #625331

    It is a great pleasure to be acquainted (even if only epistolary) with a person who knows a lot about the subject matter of one’s passion. Many congratulations to Dr Andy

    #625347
    Richard Miles
    Participant

    Great news, Andy. Does this mean you are officially a ‘professional astronomer’ shortly?
    Richard

    #625348
    Dominic Ford
    Keymaster

    This is excellent news – very well deserved!

    #625349
    Alan Thomas
    Participant

    Many congratulations Doc. Wilson! It’s a long road and you have reached your destination.
    You can now expect to be asked by visiting tradespersons (as I once was) for assistance with treating assorted ailments!!
    Alan

    #625350
    Andy Wilson
    Keymaster

    Many thanks for all of the kind words.

    Yes, this means I will become a ‘professional astronomer’, a three year position as a ‘Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Astrophysics’. Early career astronomy researchers typically work at a variety of institutions or countries on two to three year contracts with specific research goals.

    My research will involve examining spectra taken by the William Herschel Telescope. The main part of my PhD was identifying candidate young stars, using photometry in the optical and infrared. The WHT will obtain follow up spectra for several thousand of these candidate young stars. These spectra will allow me to confirm or refute their nature as young stars.

    Best wishes,
    Andy

    • This reply was modified 2 weeks, 3 days ago by Andy Wilson.
    • This reply was modified 2 weeks, 3 days ago by Andy Wilson.
    #625358
    Alex Pratt
    Participant

    Many congratulations Doc. Wilson!
    You can now expect to be asked by visiting tradespersons (as I once was) for assistance with treating assorted ailments!!
    Alan

    Alan, Andy,

    Our late friend Dr Dave Gavine – who was awarded Scotland’s first Open University PhD for his thesis ‘Astronomy in Scotland 1745–1900’ – related the story of a visit to the National Gallery of Scotland during which his mobile phone started ringing. As a member of staff walked over to reprimand him, Dave commented “Apologies, I’m a doctor…” 🙂

    Have fun with your title.

    Alex.

    #625359
    Dr Paul Leyland
    Participant

    Congratulations on being doctored!

    #625364
    Martin Lewis
    Participant

    Congratulations Andrew from all at WOLAS,
    Martin

    #625366
    David Arditti
    Participant

    I am glad it is ‘explainable’. That means Andy could explain it to a BAA meeting some time! (I daresay there is some specialised meaning of this term in play though).

    Well-done Andrew, not easy doing a PhD on a part-time basis.

    David

    #625367
    Andy Wilson
    Keymaster

    The ‘explainable’ bit means it is not a black box. With many kinds of machine learning, you don’t know the precise details of how the input data are transformed into the outputs. I used naive Bayes, which is basically maths. So you can trace the output back through the calculations to the inputs. This means the results can be explained and fully understand in terms of the input data. For my research it means I can understand why a particular object was classed as a young star, or as some other kind of object.

    Thanks,
    Andy

    #625368
    Andy Wilson
    Keymaster

    Many thanks to WOLAS. The local society I joined many decades ago when my interest in astronomy began.
    Andy

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