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 Astronomy & Space Science (CASS). 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 one MRes student, and has supervised five MRes and three PhD students to completion. Her strong scientific ties to CASS, 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 HDR coordinator in the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences (SoMAPS), Director of HDR for the MQAAAstro Research Centre, and SoMAPS Advisor for the Masters of Research Degree, 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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Network
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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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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
Research Outputs
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GASKAP-HI pilot survey science I: ASKAP zoom observations of Hi emission in the Small Magellanic Cloud
Pingel, N. M., Dempsey, J., McClure-Griffiths, N. M., Dickey, J. M., Jameson, K. E., Arce, H., Anglada, G., Bland-Hawthorn, J., Breen, S. L., Buckland-Willis, F., Clark, S. E., Dawson, J. R., Dénes, H., Di Teodoro, E. M., For, B-Q., Foster, T. J., Gómez, J. F., Imai, H., Joncas, G., Kim, C-G. & 36 others, , 7 Feb 2022, In: Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia. 39, p. 1-24 24 p., e005.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile1 Citation (Scopus)6 Downloads (Pure) -
GASKAP Pilot Survey Science. II. ASKAP zoom observations of Galactic 21 cm absorption
Dickey, J. M., Dempsey, J. M., Pingel, N. M., McClure-Griffiths, N. M., Jameson, K., Dawson, J. R., Dénes, H., Clark, S. E., Joncas, G., Leahy, D., Lee, M-Y., Miville-Deschênes, M-A., Stanimirović, S., Tremblay, C. D. & Van Loon, J. T., 1 Feb 2022, In: Astrophysical Journal. 926, 2, p. 1-20 20 p., 186.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile1 Citation (Scopus) -
Physical publicly verifiable randomness from pulsars
Dawson, J. R., Hobbs, G., Gao, Y., Camtepe, S., Pieprzyk, J., Feng, Y., Tranfa, L., Bradbury, S., Zhu, W. & Li, D., Jan 2022, In: Astronomy and Computing. 38, p. 1-10 10 p., 100549.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open Access1 Citation (Scopus) -
Amoeba: Automated Molecular Excitation Bayesian Line-fitting Algorithm
Petzler, A., Dawson, J. R. & Wardle, M., 20 Dec 2021, In: Astrophysical Journal. 923, 2, p. 1-24 24 p., 261.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile1 Downloads (Pure) -
Discovery of a new population of Galactic H II regions with Ionized gas velocity gradients
Balser, D. S., Wenger, T. V., Anderson, L. D., Armentrout, W. P., Bania, T. M., Dawson, J. R. & Dickey, J. M., 10 Nov 2021, In: Astrophysical Journal. 921, 2, p. 1-17 17 p., 176.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review