Dr Lyra Walsh

I studied physics as an undergraduate at Curtin here in Perth before moving on to a PhD at the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, at ANU in Canberra. I worked in near-field cosmology, writing and characterising a detection algorithm to find ultra-faint dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way. I found one, Bootes II, which was the faintest known galaxy at the time. After my PhD I moved to Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, where as a Magellan Fellow I supported Australian astronomers using the twin 6.5m Magellan Telescopes. I briefly left the field to work in prostate cancer research back in Perth, before finding my way back to astronomy, this time at the 8.4m Gemini South. Then I moved to the Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona. There I dove into Adaptive Optics, and while I was there completed a Master’s in optical sciences at the University of Arizona. In my spare time, I did another Master’s in space systems at Florida Tech. Now I’m here at ICRAR, putting all that together to help advance Australia’s ground-to-space optical communication capabilities.