CURRENT MISSION

Discover the universe and get home in time for dinner.

ABOUT ME

I'm an American-born astronomer currently working in Australia with a team (SkyMapper) that's building the first comprehensive digital map of the entire Southern Hemisphere sky. We're using the same telescope to build a night-to-night movie of part of the southern sky, and to search thousands of distant galaxies for supernovae, the violent explosions of stars. My research focuses on what kinds of stars explode to produce supernovae, how the explosions happen, and how to measure more accurate distances to them. Accurate distances to supernovae allow us to study how the Universe expanded throughout its history; they were used to discover the "dark energy" which is causing the expansion to accelerate, a counterintuitive finding for which the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded.

Predictably, this means I travel a lot for work, since I collaborate with other researchers all over the world (mostly the US and Europe). I tend to prefer inexpensive, "no-frills" accommodation (convenient, since competition for funding of scientific research worldwide is only getting fiercer), and I stay with friends whenever possible. I travel as light as I can, for the trip I'm on. I love talking about my work, Australia, and indeed plenty of other things, so if you're curious please ask. If I'm on a business trip when I stay with you, I may be out some evenings having dinner with colleagues (it's part of the job), but I'll be sure to make some time for you while I'm around.

The academic job market is a global job market and I have no idea where I'm likely to end up in the next few years. But I like it in Oz and am applying for a permanent visa to stay here with my lovely partner, Emily. She has her own awesome history which you might get to hear about directly from her!

When I'm not traveling for work, I sometimes travel for dance: I've been dancing (and, more recently, DJing) Lindy Hop and blues dance for over 15 years now. I've dabbled in other things -- cycling, martial arts, choral singing, stage and voice acting, whatever my locale had to offer -- but dance is a mercifully portable hobby. The world Lindy community is great for (website hidden) and meeting new friends who'll stay with you for years afterwards.

PHILOSOPHY

Mai pen rai.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Just getting started, but hopefully surfing couches and eventually having a couch to surf.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I haven't surfed or hosted much through CouchSurfing yet, but I've done it for years as a member of the world swing dance community. I've danced and DJed Lindy Hop and blues dance for over 15 years, and it's customary at weekend-long dance "Exchanges" for the local dancers to host the out-of-town dancers. The gist is much the same as for CouchSurfing: besides saving the out-of-town dancers money (they're often, but not always, poor students) and showing local hospitality, hosting other dancers is a great way to build a worldwide network of friends from all walks of life, and there is a community of trust among dancers that enables people to feel safe doing it. I've surfed with, and hosted, more dancers than I can really remember.

Interests

Answering the minimal independent spanning set of profile questions.

• arts
• singing
• acting
• dancing
• cocktails
• yoga
• partying
• traveling
• blues
• cycling
• surfing
• martial arts
• astronomy
• business
• history
• mathematics
• physics
• science

Music, Movies, and Books

Books: Collected works of Calvino, Borges, and similar, plus classics of science fiction such as Zelazny and Lem. A whole shelf of philosophy and religion. If you stay with me, you'll be staying in my office/library, so just have a look when you come in.

Music: Andrew Bird, Tom Waits, Paul Simon, The Magnetic Fields, The Smiths, Belle & Sebastian, Sun Kil Moon; stacks of other stuff.

Webcomics: MSPA/Homestuck, xkcd, Wondermark, Dinosaur Comics, Girl Genius, Gunnerkrigg Court

Movies: Amelie, American Beauty, Time Bandits, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Picking grapes in a Nobel Laureate's home vineyard on the other side of the world from where I grew up.

Teach, Learn, Share

I love talking about my work, so if you want to learn math, physics, or astronomy, I'm your guy. I've given many successful lectures to students and members of the public and have explained how I pay my rent at many a cocktail party, so if you don't have a science background, no worries! Curiosity is the only prerequisite.

I also have experience teaching Lindy Hop and blues dance, privately and in formal classes. Additionally, I lead a very embodied life even outside of dancing, so I'll be curious about your mind-body practice -- yoga, tai chi, aikido, etc.

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