Profile
John Davies
My CV
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Education:
Prenton Primary School, Birkenhead.
Rock Ferry High School, Wirral
Nottingham University, BSc and PhD
Preston Polytechnic (part time) PhD. -
Qualifications:
8 O-Levels
A-Level Physics, Chemistry, Maths
BSc and PhD in Chemistry
PhD in Astronomy
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Work History:
Flight test engineer at British Aerospace
Searching for comets at the IRAS satellite control Station near Oxford.
Helping to build the ROSAT X-ray Satellite at Birmingham
Helping to build the ISO astronomy Satellite at ROE, Edinburgh.
Supporting the UK telescope in Hawaii -
Current Job:
Organising a large EU funded Europe wide astronomy programme
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About Me:
I am an astronomer and I like everything about planets, space travel and flying. What I really wanted to be was an astronaut but in the end I was not
able to get selected. -
Read more
John was born in Liverpool, England, in 1955. After a conventional high school education he graduated in Chemistry from the University of Nottingham in 1976. John remained at Nottingham to do postgraduate work and in 1980 recieved a PhD for a thesis entitled the “Hydrogen-Deuterium exchange reaction on Platinum-Rhodium alloys”. During his time at Nottingham, John was president of the astronomy society and learned to fly gliders with the Buckminster Gliding Club.
After graduating, John spent three years as a Flight Test Engineer with British Aerospace at Warton in Lancashire where he worked on the aerodynamics and avionics of the Tornado ADV fighter version of the Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MRCA). In 1981 John was awarded the N.E.Rowe medal of the Royal Aeronautical Society for a paper entitled “Possible Future Developments of the Space Shuttle”. Away from work, John continued to fly gliders and spot planes for fun. For “relaxation” he began a part time PhD in astronomy at Preston Polytechnic, working with Dr Doug Whittet on “Photometric Monitoring of Early Type Emission Line stars”. Three jobs, a marriage and three children later, he graduated with this degree in 1988.
In 1982, having decided astronomy was more fun than flight testing, John left British Aerospace and joined the astronomy department of Leicester University where he worked with a small group of solar system astronomers. John, with then PhD student Simon Green, searched data from the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) for moving objects. This led to the discovery of 6 new comets, a hitherto unknown dust trail associated with comet P/Tempel-2 and several asteroids including 3200 Phaethon (the source of the Geminid meteors). When the IRAS mission ended, John stayed at Leicester for a while helping in the UK preparations to observe Halley’s comet before moving,in 1984, to the Space Research department of Birmingham University. At Birmingham he helped with the testing of the Wide Field Camera, a British soft X-ray telescope carried on the German/US/UK ROSAT astronomy satellite. The ROSAT launch was delayed by the explosion of the Space Shuttle “Challenger” in 1986, but it eventually went on to make a very important survey of the sky at X-ray wavelengths.
John moved to the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh (ROE) in 1987 and joined the international team building ISOCAM, the Infrared Camera for the European Infrared Space Observatory satellite. At ROE John was responsible for a cyrogenic (ultra-low temperature) test facilty used to verify the performance of the optics for ISOCAM and was eventually made a member of the ISOCAM science team. As the ISOCAM test programme ended, John joined the group at ROE responsible for the support of UKIRT, the UK Infrared Telescope atop the 14,000ft high dormant volcano Mauna Kea in Hawaii. John was responsible for the UKIRT “service observing” programme which makes short observations for a variety of small projects, none of which require the award of a whole night of telescope time. He still liked spotting planes.
In 1993 John and his family moved to Hilo, Hawaii and John joined the team of astronomers at the Joint Astronomy Centre supporting UKIRT. As a “support scientist” John assisted astronomers who come to use the telescope and, from 1996 to 2001, he was also responsible for setting the telescope schedule. Like the other UKIRT scientists, he made frequent trips up to the telescope to support visiting astronomers during their first night at the telescope.
In 2001 John returned to Edinburgh, to become Project Scientist for the European OPTICONproject, an EC sponsored activity aimed at integrating all of European astronomers. OPTICON is a huge step in developing European astronomy and hopes to help pave the way for a European ‘Super telescope’ with a mirror 42m in diameter. The OPTICON project requires a lot of meetings and travel around Europe and allows him to continue to indulge his interests in planes
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Read more
I am a staff astronomer at the UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UKATC) at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh. We have a staff of about 80 of whom 11 are astronomers, the rest are engineers technicians and support staff like IT and human resources. The main job of the UKATC is to design and build instruments for telescopes, so most of our astronomers are assigned to being a project scientist for a specific instrument- to make sure it will do what astronomers want and to help the engineers make the right design choices.
My job is a bit different. I do not build things, I organise things. So for example every 6 months I organise a selection process to decide who gets time on which telescope. I define the rules, make a call for proposals in which the astronomers say what they want to do and why. Then I organise a panel of other astronomers to decide who are the winners (about 1/3 projects get approved). Then I get the observations scheduled.
I also write proposals to get the money from the European Commission to pay for all of this!
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My Typical Day:
I work in an office. I mostly organise other astronomers using e-mail, phone and video conferences. Sometimes I go to telescopes all over the world to observe comets and asteroids. I write books and give lectures about astronomy.
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
Astronomer/Rocket Scientist
What did you want to be after you left school?
Astronaut
Were you ever in trouble at school?
No
Who is your favourite singer or band?
The Beatles
What's your favourite food?
Fish and Chips
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
I would like to fly in space.
Tell us a joke.
A chemist walks into a cafe and says 'I lost an electron'. The owner asks 'Are you sure?' The chemist replies 'Yes I'm positive'.
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