What is your position or role in the DESI project?
I’m a 3rd year PhD student at University College London (UCL), and have been an active member of the Lyman-alpha working group in DESI for the last 2 years or so.
Where were you born?
I was born in the UK, about 40 miles south of London. I grew up in the same area, in a small village surrounded by countryside – I love going back to visit my parents there and going for long walks in the hills.
Where do you live now?
I now live in London itself, close to UCL. It’s not that far from where I grew up but it feels like a completely different world. Sometimes it’s great to be in the heart of a city like London but sometimes a bit more peace and quiet is nice too!
What do you do as part of DESI?
Within DESI I’ve been working on making mock datasets for the Lyman-alpha working group. These are essentially very computationally-efficient simulations which are designed to produce “synthetic” versions of DESI’s Lyman-alpha survey which we can then use to carry out a number of different tests. In particular, we use them to make sure that our analysis methods are not biased, and to understand the impact that systematic errors can have on our measurements.
What is the most interesting or exciting thing about DESI?
DESI is exciting for so many different reasons, but I find the global nature of the collaboration particularly exciting – when we have our collaboration meetings, it’s like a big family that’s spread all over the world coming together again. I also find the instrumentation side of things really fascinating, and the sheer number of hours that have been spent building all of DESI’s component parts blows my mind!
What do you do for fun?
In summer I try to get outdoors as much as possible and love playing all kinds of sports – cricket is a particular favourite. When the weather closes in for winter, though, I’m very happy to stay warm and dry indoors with a good book or film!
