Description: Phased antenna arrays for neutrino radio detection (Askaryan effect); quantum-limited RF receivers.
Barry works on the detection of the 21-cm signal from the Epoch of Reionisation with the Murchison Widefield Array and, prospectively, SKA-Low. Her specialty is calibration systematics: she has shown how small errors in the sky and beam model propagate into spectral structure that mimics or swamps the cosmological signal, and has developed the diagnostic and mitigation framework that current MWA upper limits rest on. This is a measurement whose entire difficulty is instrumental. Positioned against the established body of NV-ensemble quantum sensing work ā DEER, nanoscale NMR and T1 relaxometry protocols operating at pT/sqrt(Hz) field sensitivity ā the intellectual structure is identical to a hard magnetometry measurement: raw sensitivity is adequate, and everything depends on understanding correlated, instrument-induced systematics well enough to subtract them below the signal. Early-career PI (DECRA). Borderline astronomy inclusion, kept on the systematics/instrument criterion.
de Lera Acedo heads the Cavendish Radio Astronomy and Cosmology group and is PI of the REACH experiment, a global 21-cm signal radiometer deployed in the Karoo desert, South Africa, targeting detection of the redshifted hydrogen signal from the Cosmic Dawn (zā7.5ā28). He has a PDRA opening for 21-cm cosmology data analysis. Research spans novel antenna design, ultra-low-noise receiver calibration (achieving ~80 mK RMSE), Bayesian foreground modelling, and RFI mitigation. He also leads the CosmoCube space mission concept for lunar-orbit 21-cm observations and is active in SKA development and HERA. He is actively hiring postdocs (PDRA posting live in 2025).
NON-PREFERRED (astronomy pivot, kept for review). Hewitt builds and operates low-frequency radio interferometers (HERA, MWA) to detect the redshifted 21-cm signal from the Cosmic Dawn and Epoch of Reionization; the sensors are large radio antenna arrays rather than quantum sensors, so this is a borderline astro-instrumentation inclusion.
NON-PREFERRED (astronomy pivot, kept for review). Masui's Synoptic Radio Lab uses the CHIME telescope for hydrogen intensity mapping of large-scale structure and for detecting and localizing fast radio bursts as cosmological probes; work spans theory, data analysis, observation, and digital instrumentation, but the sensing elements are radio-frequency antennas/digital correlators rather than quantum sensors.
Parsons directs Berkeley's Radio Astronomy Laboratory and leads instrumentation development for the HERA 21-cm interferometric array, engineering the low-noise, precisely calibrated radio receiver systems needed to detect the faint cosmological 21-cm signal from the Cosmic Dawn and Epoch of Reionization.
Works on quantum-limited sensing for astroparticle physics. Directions: (1) Pierre Auger Observatory ā UHE cosmic ray composition and spectrum via radio and fluorescence detection; (2) liquid argon dark matter detectors; (3) co-PI DARPA QuSeN (2025) ā quantum sensing of neutrinos using phonon-coupled SC qubit sensors with Cleland and Chou. KICP member.
Builds radio and mm-wave quantum-limited sensing instruments for high-energy astrophysics and cosmology. Directions: (1) PUEO ā balloon-borne radio Cherenkov (Askaryan) detector for ultra-high-energy cosmogenic neutrinos; (2) RNO-G ā ground-based radio neutrino array at Summit Station, Greenland; (3) UHE cosmic ray radio detection methodology; (4) CMB instrumentation (BICEP/Keck, SPT, CMB-S4). 2025 APS Fellow; 2022 Moore EPII award. Director KICP.
Experimental astroparticle physicist developing radio-based detection of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. Directions: (1) HAWC ā high-altitude water Cherenkov detector for gamma-ray and cosmic ray sensing; (2) IceTop surface array at IceCube for cosmic ray composition at the knee; (3) radio detection of cosmic-ray-induced air showers (Askaryan emission) as a technique for large-scale UHE cosmic ray sensing. Enrico Fermi Institute member.
Webster works on the Epoch of Reionisation with the Murchison Widefield Array, where the science goal ā detecting the redshifted 21-cm signal from the first stars ā is a five-orders-of-magnitude foreground-subtraction and instrumental-calibration problem rather than an astrophysics problem. Her group's contributions are in foreground modelling, ionospheric and beam calibration, and the statistical detection of a signal buried far below the systematics floor; she also works on quasar accretion physics. Positioned against the established body of NV-ensemble quantum sensing work ā DEER, nanoscale NMR and T1 relaxometry protocols operating at pT/sqrt(Hz) field sensitivity ā the methodological parallel is exact: like a pT/sqrt(Hz) NV ensemble measurement, a 21-cm detection lives or dies on the control of correlated systematics rather than on raw sensitivity. Borderline inclusion under the astronomy criterion, kept because the array and its calibration are the central object of study.