Chris Tinney

 
 

I'm a Professor at the University of New South Wales, where I head the Exoplanetary Science at UNSW group in the School of Physics.


Our Exoplanetary Science at UNSW group works on projects ranging from the search for exoplanets orbiting other stars.


We work closely with the Planetary Science group (lead by Prof Jeremy Bailey) and stellar astronomers A/Prof Sarah Martell and Prof Dennis Stello.


I lead the Veloce spectrograph project to enable new generations of planet searches with Australia's largest on-shore photon bucket - the 3.9m Anglo-Australian Telescope.


We actively pursue new technologies for searching for exoplanets - we have developed the use of image slicing fibre technologies for improving spectrograph performance, and ultra-calibration using pulsed laser spectral combs.


We work closely with colleagues across 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 School of Physics.


 


Current Position:

Professor
School of Physics, UNSW.


Leader of the Exoplanetary Science at UNSW group.


Why I have the best job:

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


Education:

  1. •PhD (Astronomy), 1992, Caltech

  2. •BSc (Hons), 1986, U. Sydney


Past Positions:

  1. •Associate Dean Research,
    UNSW Science (2013-2017)

  2. •ARC Discovery Outstanding Researcher (2013-2015)

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

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

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

  6. •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, M-dwarfs

  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 spectroscopy

  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. •School of Physics, UNSW

  3. •UNSW Science



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




Other Stuff I Like ....


Footy Team: Sydney Swans


Authors: Jack Vance (my all-time favourite author who passed away at age 96 in 2013), Iain Banks (a writing genius who passed away far too young in 2013), 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, the Takeshi Kovacs novels of Richard Morgan.


Science Writing: The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett


Composer: Gustav Mahler

Piece: Mahler's Symphony No. 2 (and especially the spine-tingling performance by the London Philharmonic Orchestra with Vladimir Jurowski and lieder-specialist mezzo Christianne Stotijn. I was lucky enough to be one of the few thousand people who heard this live!).


Electronics: Bose QC20 in-ear noise cancelling headphones. These things are amazing. They give you the dynamic range to listen to classical music anywhere - on the plane, on a bus, while walking around ... since getting these a few years ago I’ve listened to more music, than over the previous 15!
On the downside, the plugs break every few years about 6-12 months after the warranty period has expired.


Cafe: Single O. My neighbourhood cafe for the last ~20 years, and (I maintain) the best coffee to be had in Sydney.



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


Interests: Italy, Venice, Byzantium


Some Random Links

  1. •RealFooty

  2. •David Mitchell at The Grauniad

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


Stuff I Really Can’t Stand ....

  1. •People who stand up close to the baggage carousel, so that no-one can see the bags. If everyone stands back 1m, then everyone can see the bags. Trigonometry folks - its not hard!

  2. •People who get in and out of their seat on  plane by pulling on the seat in front of them. The seat in front of you belongs to the person in front of you - your seat belongs to you. PUSH on the seat behind you, don't PULL on the seat in front.

  3. •Collingwood Football Club - obviously.

  4. •People who stop when they get off an escalator for a think. Or stop in doorways. Or hallways  ... basically anyone who clogs up the traffic flow as a result of not thinking about those around them.

  5. •Cars that queue across intersections - see above.


 

About my research ....

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


In 1987 I moved to Pasadena, California to do a PhD in astronomy at the California Institute of Technology (yep - the same one as in The Big Bang Theory). Although I did small research projects there in VLBI, single-dish and interferometer 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 any 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 (and do 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 (managing the support astronomers). While at the AAO I got progressively more and more involved in exoplanetary research, and that has become the main focus of my work today.


More personally ....


I read rather a lot - 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 ABC Radio National, BBC Radio 4, and (much more now that I have noise-cancelling ear-bud headphones) classical music.


Despite growing up in Sydney as a follower of rugby league (and the now defunct Western Suburbs Magpies - I just can't bring myself to be interested in the so-called Wests Tigers), I have become am a rusted-on Sydney Swans supporter. I watch far too much AFL during the footy season.

About me ....