ProfessorTara Murphy

I am the Head of School of Physics at the University of Sydney, and a Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery.

My research is in extreme astronomical objects that change rapidly on human timescales ("radio transients"). I lead the Variables and Slow Transients (VAST) project on the Australian SKA Pathfinder Telescope. In VAST we aim to find radio emission from distant explosive events such as supernovae and gamma-ray bursts, through to objects in our local neighbourhood such as flaring stars and potentially exoplanets.

I also lead the Australian effort for the radio follow-up of gravitational wave events detected by LIGO. This resulted in the first detection of radio emission from a binary neutron star merger GW170817 (in collaboration with international colleagues).