Dr Stuart Ryder is an Adjunct Fellow with the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, and a member of the Astrophysics and Space Technologies Research Centre. Previously he led the International Telescopes Support Office at the Australian Astronomical Observatory. Stuart works part-time as a Senior Program Manager with Astronomy Australia Ltd at their Macquarie University office, overseeing Australia's Strategic Partnership with the European Southern Observatory, and engagement with the Giant Magellan Telescope and the Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time.

Stuart's research interests are primarily in astronomical transients, including core-collapse supernovae and Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs). He co-leads the SUNBIRD (Supernovae UNmasked By InfraRed Detection) collaboration, that has used Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics facilities on 8-10 metre class telescopes including Gemini, Keck, Subaru, and the Very Large Telescope to reveal a population of "missing" supernovae. Stuart flew a total of 8 missions on NASA's Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA). He is also leading the optical follow-up using the Very Large Telescope of the host galaxies to FRBs localised with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder by the CRAFT collaboration, for which he and the CRAFT team were awarded the 2021 AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize for the most impactful paper published in the prestigious journal Science in 2019/20. In 2023 his team found the most distant FRB yet, that occurred in a compact group of galaxies almost 8 billion years ago.

2016-2018: Erik Kool (MQ), PhD.

2016-2018: Igor Andreoni (Swinburne), PhD.

2019: Lachlan Marnoch (MQ), MRes.

2020-2025: Lachlan Marnoch (MQ), PhD.

2023-2024: Srivardini Ayyappann (MQ), MRes.