Dr Jo Dawson (BSc 1st class hons UCL, PhD Nagoya University) holds a joint position as an Associate Professor 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 CSIRO, 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 five PhD students, and has supervised ten 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 is the Research Training Director for the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MAPS) and Deputy Director of the Macquarie University Astrophysics and Space Technologies Research Centre. She has taught astrophysics units at all levels, including the popular first year Introductory Astronomy course ASTR170, and currently convenes the Faculty of Science and Engineering capstone unit FOSE3000. She has a strong interest in Diversity in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields, and has served on the Macquarie University Gender Equity Self Assessment Team and on the Physics and Astronomy Departmental Diversity Committee (which she chaired in 2016–2017).

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.