Projects per year
Personal profile
Biography
Dr Jo Dawson (BSc 1st class hons UCL, PhD Nagoya University) holds a joint position as a Senior Lecturer in Astronomy and Astrophysics at Macquarie University and a Research Scientist at CSIRO Space & Astronomy (S&A). She was previously an ARC DECRA Fellow at Macquarie, a Bolton Fellow at CASS, and an ARC Super Science Fellow at the University of Tasmania. She has been working at Macquarie since 2014.
Dr Dawson is the current primary supervisor to two PhD students and three MRes students, and has supervised six MRes and three PhD students to completion. Her strong scientific ties to CSIRO S&A, which manages the Australia Telescope National Facility, mean that her students enjoy ready access to the associated world-class instrumentation and expertise. She holds a number of service roles in Higher Degree Research: she is an HDR coordinator for the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MAPS), Director of HDR for the Macquarie University Astrophysics and Space Technologies Research Centre, and MAPS MRes Programme Director, where she has worked to improve the delivery of the second (research-based) year of the programme. She has taught astrophysics units at all levels, including the popular first year Introductory Astronomy course ASTR170. She currently teaches the second year project-based unit ASTR2020, the MRes unit ASTR7913, and convenes the Faculty of Science and Engineering capstone unit FOSE3000.
Dr Dawson has a strong interest in Diversity in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields, and in evidence-based policy changes that can help level a playing-field that has historically been tilted against women and sexual and racial minorities. She has served on the Macquarie University Gender Equity Self Assessment Team, on the Physics and Astronomy Departmental Diversity Committee (which she chaired in 2016–2017), and also chaired the annual Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA) Inclusivity, Diversity and Equity in Astronomy (IDEA) workshop.
Research interests
Dr Dawson's core interests are radio astronomical studies of the interstellar medium (ISM). Her research focuses on the evolution of the ISM in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, and in particular on the mechanisms by which the atomic medium is processed into molecular clouds. A key highlight of her work has been providing quantitative evidence of molecular cloud formation in giant "supershells" formed by multiple stellar winds and supernovae.
In recent years her attention has turned to the so-called "Dark ISM" - material bridging the gap between the diffuse/atomic and dense/molecular regimes, and which is invisible to most standard radio astronomical tracers. She leads the large radio astronomical survey project SPLASH (the Southern Parkes Large-Area Survey in Hydroxyl), a deep survey of OH molecules in the Southern Galactic Plane which aims to characterise this hidden gas in the Milky Way, and co-leads the Australia Telescope Square Kilometer Array GASKAP survey. She is also investigating the relationships between radio spectral line tracers of the gaseous ISM, and infra-red and optical emission/absorption from interstellar dust.
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Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
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The formation of stars and planets (ARC Discovery Project)
Wardle, M., Salmeron, R. & Dawson, J.
24/04/12 → …
Project: Research
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A next-generation receiver for Radio Astronomy
Staveley-Smith, L., Rhee, J., Sadler, E., Bhat, R., Macquart, J., Dawson, J., Green, J., Johnston, S., Ma, J. & Duan, R.
16/10/20 → 31/12/21
Project: Research
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CSIRO ResearchPlus Postdoctoral fellowship in radio astronomy hosting agreement
Steel, M., Dawson, J., Hastings, E. & Hobbs, G.
5/10/20 → 4/10/23
Project: Research
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Unveiling the Milky Way Galaxy: dense gas structure and star formation
Breen, S. & Dawson, J.
20/05/20 → 19/05/24
Project: Other
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MQAAAstro: Macquarie University Astronomy, Astrophysics and Astrophotonics Research Centre
De Marco, O., McDermid, R., Casali, M., Wardle, M., de Grijs, R., Hopkins, A., Coutts, D. W., Withford, M., Zucker, D., Spitler, L., Owers, M., Dawson, J., Kotachery, D., Purcell, C., Schwab, C., Sealey, K., O'Toole, S., Lorente, N., Ellis, S., Lopez Sanchez, A. R., De Silva, G., Zafar, T., Ryder, S., Mulligan, J., Feger, T., Choudhury, S. & Lawrence, J.
1/01/20 → 31/12/22
Project: Other
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First search for pulsed CH maser emission stimulated by a pulsar
Liu, M., Li, D., Dawson, J. R., Weisberg, J. M., Hobbs, G., Tang, N., Luo, G., Xu, D. & Quan, D., 1 Feb 2025, In: Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics. 25, 2, p. 1-10 10 p., 025007.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Multi-phase HI clouds in the Small Magellanic Cloud halo
Buckland-Willis, F., Miville-Deschênes, M. A., Marchal, A., Dawson, J. R., Dénes, H., Di Teodoro, E. M., Dickey, J. M., Gibson, S. J., Kemp, I. P., Lynn, C., Ma, Y. K., McClure-Griffiths, N. M., Murray, C. E., Pingel, N. M., Stanimirović, S. & Van Loon, J. T., Jan 2025, In: Astronomy and Astrophysics. 693, p. 1-16 16 p., A239.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile1 Citation (Scopus)10 Downloads (Pure) -
A search for 3-mm molecular absorption line transitions in the magellanic stream
Steffes, L., Rybarczyk, D. R., Stanimirović, S., Dawson, J. R., Putman, M., Richter, P., Gallagher III, J., Liszt, H., Murray, C., Dickey, J. M., Heiles, C., Hernandez, A., Lindner, R., Liu, Y., McClure-Griffiths, N. M., Wong, T. & Savage, B., 25 Nov 2024, In: Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia. 41, p. 1-10 10 p., e094.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile1 Citation (Scopus)23 Downloads (Pure) -
GASKAP-OH: A new deep survey of ground-state OH masers and absorption in the southern sky
Dawson, J. R., Breen, S. L. & GASKAP-OH Team, 2024, In: Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union. 18, S380 (2022), p. 486-490 5 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile32 Downloads (Pure) -
Local H I absorption towards the magellanic cloud foreground using ASKAP
Nguyen, H., McClure-Griffiths, N. M., Dempsey, J., Dickey, J. M., Lee, M-Y., Lynn, C., Murray, C. E., Stanimirović, S., Busch, M. P., Clark, S. E., Dawson, J. R., Dénes, H., Gibson, S., Jameson, K., Joncas, G., Kemp, I., Leahy, D., Ma, Y. K., Marchal, A., Miville-Deschênes, M-A., & 4 others , 1 Nov 2024, In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 534, 4, p. 3478-3497 20 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile3 Citations (Scopus)21 Downloads (Pure)
Prizes
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Winner - Vice-Chancellor’s Educational Leader Award
Daczko, Nathan (Team leader), Spence, Natalie (Recipient), Owers, Matt (Recipient), Dawson, Joanne (Recipient), Karunaratne, Prashan (Recipient) & Chareunsy, Andrea (Recipient), 21 Nov 2022
Prize: Teaching award