Bryan Gaensler

Bryan Malcolm Gaensler (born July 4, 1973) is an Australian astronomer and former Young Australian of the Year, currently based at the University of Sydney. He is best known for his work on magnetars, supernova remnants and magnetic fields.

Education

Gaensler was born in Sydney, Australia. He attended Sydney Grammar School on an academic scholarship, and then studied at the University of Sydney, from where he was awarded a perfect grade of 100 for his honours thesis, and henceforth graduated with a B.Sc. with first class honours in physics (1995), followed by a PhD in astrophysics (1999).

Career

From 1998 to 2001, Gaensler held a Hubble Fellowship at the Center for Space Research of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2001 he moved to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory as a Clay Fellow. In 2002, he took up an appointment as an assistant professor in the Department of Astronomy at Harvard University where he was also the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Astronomy & Astrophysics concentration.In 2006, he moved back to Sydney as an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow in the School of Physics at the University of Sydney.

Research

In 1997, Gaensler showed that many supernova remnants are aligned with the magnetic field of the Milky Way like "cosmic compasses" [http://www.csiro.au/communication/mediarel/mr1997/mr97141.htm] .In 2000, he and Dale Frail calculated that some pulsars are much older than previously believed [http://edition.cnn.com/2000/TECH/space/07/31/pulsar.age] .In 2004, Gaensler used the Chandra X-ray Observatory to make the first detailed study of the behavior of high-energy particles around a fast moving pulsar [http://chandra.harvard.edu/press/04_releases/press_092304.html] .

In 2005, Gaensler was reported to have solved the mystery of why some supernova explosions form magnetars while others form ordinary pulsars [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/02/050201193246.htm] .Later that year, he and his colleagues observed the brightest explosion ever observed in the history of astronomy, resulting from a sudden pulse of gamma rays from the magnetar SGR 1806-20 [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/18/science/18cnd-star.html?ex=1132549200&en=66aaefe50408638d&ei=5070&8bl] .In 2005, Gaensler also reported puzzling new observations of the Large Magellanic Cloud, showing that powerful but unknown forces were at work in maintaining this galaxy's magnetic field [http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0503/12chaos/] .

Gaensler is the international project scientist for the Square Kilometre Array, a next-generation radio telescope.

Awards

*Hubble Fellow (1998)
*Young Australian of the Year (1999)
*Australia Day Address (2001)
* Clay Fellow (2001)
*Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow (2005)
*Australian Research Council Federation Fellow (2005)
*Newton Lacy Pierce Prize in Astronomy (2006)

External links

* [http://www.australianoftheyear.gov.au/recipient.asp?pID=73 Young Australian of the Year]
* [http://www.australiaday.com.au/address_welcome.html Australia Day Address]
* [http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~bmg Personal WWW page at the University of Sydney]