• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI)

  • / science /
    • science overview
    • cosmology and dark energy
    • redshifts and distance
    • mapping the universe
    • the DESI science mission
    • the DESI survey
    • imaging surveys
  • / instrument /
    • instrument overview
    • telescope
      • tohono o’odham
    • corrector
    • focal plane system
    • fiber system
    • spectrograph
    • instrument control system
    • data systems
    • bringing DESI to life
      • commissioning Instrument
      • protoDESI
  • / collaboration /
    • DESI team
    • DESI builders
    • collaborating institutions
    • sponsors
    • code of conduct
    • vendors
    • collaboration policies
  • / press /
    • announcements
    • in the news
    • press releases
    • tweets by desisurvey
    • blog
    • acknowledgments
  • / galleries /
    • videos
    • image gallery
  • / for scientists /
    • data releases
    • instrument design
    • imaging data
    • target selection and survey validation
    • theory and simulations
    • other DESI science
    • key publications
    • all DESI papers
    • team login
    • request a DESI speaker
    • internal
  • / education & outreach /
    • meet a DESI member
    • blog
    • planetarium show
    • DESI high
    • interactive visualizations
    • DESI Merch

James Farr

November 22, 2019 by


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 favorite. When the weather closes in for winter, though, I’m very happy to stay warm and dry indoors with a good book or film!

Filed Under: meet a DESI member

Primary Sidebar

meet more members

  • Ashley Ross
  • Ingrid Peterson
  • Laura Casas
  • Jamie McCullough
  • Ting Li
  • Agne Semenaite
  • Julian Bautista
  • Boryana Hadzhiyska
  • Anna Porredon
  • Hernan Rincon
  • Umut Demirbozan
  • Bernardita Ried Guachalla
  • Peter Clark
  • Siwei Zou
  • John Suárez-Pérez
  • Namitha Kizhuprakkat
  • Hermine Wilman-Landt
  • Shaun Cole
  • Arnaud De Mattia
  • Dillon Brout
  • Ting-Yun Cheng (Sunny)
  • Alexie Leauthaud
  • Alex Krolewski
  • Juan Garcia Bellido
  • David Kirkby
  • Allyson Brodzeller
  • Lado Samushia
  • Christoph Saulder
  • Paul Martini
  • Sandy Yuan
  • Vaisakh Rajeev
  • Hector Gil Marín
  • Zack Slepian
  • Rongpu Zhou
  • Fei Qin
  • Mehdi Rezaie
  • Rossana Ruggeri
  • Ben Weaver
  • Hee-Jong Seo
  • Andreu Font-Ribera
  • Joe DeRose
  • Mariana Vargas Magaña
  • Angela Berti
  • Abby Bault
  • Adam Myers
  • Jesse Golden-Marx
  • Patrick Dunlop
  • Elise Darragh-Ford
  • Minji Oh
  • Jessica Harris
  • Boris Gaensicke
  • Victoria Fawcett
  • Kevin Fanning
  • Lehman Garrison
  • Hanyu Zhang
  • Omar A. Ruiz Macias
  • Seshadri Nadathur
  • Ignasi Pérez i Ràfols
  • Santiago Serrano Elorduy
  • Biprateep Dey
  • Claire Lamman
  • Kyle Dawson
  • Eddie Schlafly
  • Otger Ballester
  • Aaron Meisner
  • Antonella Palmese
  • Andrea Muñoz Gutiérrez
  • David Sprayberry
  • Dustin Lang
  • Tamara Davis
  • Jahmour Givans
  • John Moustakas
  • Pauline Zarrouk
  • Hu Zou
  • Christian Soto
  • Sarah E.
  • Duan Yutong
  • Michael Wilson
  • Tammie Lavoie
  • James Farr
  • Steve Kent
  • Srivatsan Sridhar
  • Jessica Aguilar
  • Alma Xochitl Gonzalez Morales
  • Charles-Antoine Claveau
  • Christopher Manser
  • Richard Joyce
  • Tami Blackwell
  • Yu-Ling Chang

Footer

TEAM LOGIN

twitter   instagram   facebook

Copyright © 2018 Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument [DESI]

Copyright © 2025 · Parallax Pro DESI on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in