Junior SALT Astronomer

Paul is a born and bred South African. His academic career started in 2000 at the University of Pretoria where he obtained a degree in Physics and Mathematics with a sprinkle of Engineering. He worked his way through the NASSP programme at the University of Cape Town where he is currently in the process of finishing his PhD. His thesis involves the study of galaxy evolution and transformation in cluster and supercluster environments using evolutionary synthesis modeling.

Paul joined the SALT team in July 2010 and is working with Steve Crawford on the SALT data reduction pipeline, specifically the RSS MOS data reductions. He has also taken on SALT observing duties, which he enjoys very much.

His research interests lie mainly in the area of extra galactic astronomy: using star formation to trace galaxy transformation processes, the effects of large scale structure on galaxy properties and making use of multi-wavelength data to study these effects. He feels proud and very fortunate to have joined the SALT team at such an exciting time in South African astronomy and hopes to further build a career at SALT.