PhD Fellowships on JWST and Machine Learning at Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia

Australian Research Council funded PhD positions are available at Swinburne University. Two of these positions are a part of the JWST Laureate Science group led by Prof. Karl Glazebrook at Swinburne and will have the opportunity to work with the team at the JWST Australian Data Centre  including Dr. Themiya Nanayakkara, Dr. Colin Jacobs, Prof. Ivo Labbe, Dr. Lalitwadee Kawinwanichakij, and Dr. Harry George Chittenden.

JWST Project 1: Understanding the evolution of galaxy morphology with the JWST and machine learning
Supervisors: Dr. Colin Jacobs, Prof. Karl Glazebrook, Prof. Roberto Abraham (U. Toronto)

The morphology (shape) of galaxies is a function of their evolutionary history and is correlated with properties such as the age of the stars, the galaxy’s merger history, and star formation rate. How the universe evolved from the earliest proto-galaxies to the regular (and beautiful) shapes we see around us in the local universe is still not well understood. Studies of galaxy morphology have relied on each of expert classifications, citizen scientists, statistical analysis of the pixels, and deep learning, and have been applied to data from early ground-based sky surveys all the way up to the Hubble and James Webb space telescope era. It is only with JWST that we can see the earliest galaxies (redshift > 2) in all their detail. Your PhD work would build on previous work by combining new JWST infrared images with machine learning techniques to explore novel ways of automatically quantifying morphology, and thus the evolution over time and relationship to other astrophysical quantities. This project will utilise JWST imaging, cutting-edge supercomputing/GPU resources, and includes an international co-supervisor in Toronto whom you would be expected to visit for an extended stay.

JWST Project 2: The life of first galaxies through JWST lens
Supervisors: Dr. Themiya Nanayakkara, Prof Karl Glazebrook, Prof. Jan Eldridge (U. Auckland)

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has opened an exciting new era in exploring deep mysteries of the Universe. With deep imaging and spectroscopy, we can now start investigating the first stars and galaxies in the Universe. In this PhD project, you will have the opportunity to use deep observations obtained by several JWST programs to explore the life and death of galaxies in the early Universe. The data can be combined with new cosmological and stellar population models to determine properties of stars and gas in these early galaxies and uncover their evolutionary pathways to the diverse Universe we observe today. Through this project you will have opportunities to request further JWST time to expand on your initial results and use other large ground-based facilities to complete the view obtained by JWST. Swinburne University has exclusive access to 20 Keck nights per year. Australian based researchers are also eligible to apply to ESO/VLT time.

You can direct questions about these projects to [email protected] .

There is also a Rubin Observatory/LSST oriented project available: Revealing the transient Universe with machine learning with Dr. Anais Möller. 

More details about all the projects can be found here . You can apply to all these projects by using the Swinburne CAS EOI system .