Birkby uses the world's largest telescopes and highest-resolution spectrographs to determine the composition and dynamics of exoplanet atmospheres via high-resolution cross-correlation spectroscopy, as ERC Starting Grant PI of the 'exoZoo' project, with a longer-term goal of surveying nearby terrestrial exoplanets with future Extremely Large Telescopes.
Bland-Hawthorn founded the field of astrophotonics and directs SAIL. The core idea is to replace bulk-optic astronomical instruments with single-mode photonic devices: the photonic lantern (an adiabatic multimode-to-single-mode transition that lets a seeing-limited telescope beam be fed into single-mode circuitry), fibre Bragg grating OH-suppression filters that notch out the ~100 atmospheric emission lines swamping the near-infrared, integral-field hexabundles, photonic combs and integrated spectrographs. He also leads Galactic archaeology work (GALAH, S5). Positioned against the established body of NV-ensemble quantum sensing work — DEER, nanoscale NMR and T1 relaxometry protocols operating at pT/sqrt(Hz) field sensitivity — SAIL is where a quantum-sensing physicist's instincts about single-mode optics, photon budgets and noise floors transfer most directly into astronomy — the entire discipline exists because photon-starved measurements need front-end optics designed at the fundamental limit, exactly as with pT/sqrt(Hz) magnetometry. Excellent pivot target; large group, deep fabrication resources.
Boccaletti develops and exploits high-contrast coronagraphic imaging instrumentation for direct detection and characterization of exoplanets and circumstellar debris disks, including the four-quadrant phase-mask coronagraph built at Observatoire de Paris-PSL now flying on JWST's MIRI instrument, which recently resolved the inner dust belt and all four planets of the HR 8799 system in the mid-infrared.
Bottom builds high-contrast coronagraphic instruments and adaptive-optics systems for direct imaging and characterization of exoplanets, including infrared detector and instrument-concept development for the Habitable Worlds Observatory. The group is actively recruiting postdocs interested in astronomical instrumentation.
Bryant invented the hexabundle — a lightly-fused bundle of optical fibres that behaves as an imaging integral-field unit while retaining high throughput — and leads the Hector galaxy survey instrument built around them. Her work is squarely instrumentation: fibre bundle design and fabrication, throughput and cross-talk characterisation, and the deployment of hundreds of these units on a telescope to obtain spatially resolved spectroscopy of thousands of galaxies. Positioned against the established body of NV-ensemble quantum sensing work — DEER, nanoscale NMR and T1 relaxometry protocols operating at pT/sqrt(Hz) field sensitivity — the connection is device-level rather than conceptual, but the discipline — squeezing every photon out of a fibre-coupled optical train — is the same one that governs collection-efficiency-limited pT/sqrt(Hz) NV ensemble readout. Borderline inclusion under the astronomy criterion; kept because the sensor front end is the object of study.
NON-PREFERRED (astronomy pivot, kept for review). Burdge discovers and characterizes compact binary systems (white dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes) using time-domain, multi-messenger methods, and develops ultrafast sub-electron-noise optical camera instrumentation (Lightspeed) for ground-based telescopes; this is a good fit for the 'sufficiently complicated sensor enabling temporal resolution' astro-pivot category rather than core quantum sensing.
Buscher leads optical/infrared astronomical interferometry research at the Cavendish, co-leading COAST and serving as System Architect for the Magdalena Ridge Observatory Interferometer (MROI) in New Mexico. Current work focuses on MROI science-combiner instrumentation, fringe tracking, and light source/alignment systems for the beam train. He also holds an EPSRC grant (with Haniff and Young) on machining metre-sized gratings with nanometre precision for ELT high-resolution spectrographs. He is President of the Scientific Council of the European Interferometry Initiative.
Experimental cosmologist building and operating CMB telescopes. Directions: (1) South Pole Telescope — PI of SPT series; SPT-3G currently mapping CMB temperature and polarization at arcminute resolution; (2) thermal and kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect mapping for galaxy cluster cosmology; (3) CMB gravitational lensing for large-scale structure; (4) CMB-S4 design and planning. Argonne joint appointment. APS and AAAS Fellow.
Carr designs, builds and calibrates fluxgate magnetometers for planetary and heliophysics space missions (including ESA's JUICE and BepiColombo), covering everything from sensor electronics to in-flight calibration of magnetic-field instrumentation.
Develops superconducting detector and readout systems for CMB observations. Directions: (1) SQUID-multiplexed readout architecture for large TES bolometer arrays (SPT-3G, CMB-S4); (2) transition-edge sensor bolometer fabrication and characterization; (3) MKID detector development; (4) CMB-S4 instrument design. Argonne joint appointment. Deep expertise in quantum-limited cryogenic detector readout.