TED MACKERETH
RESEARCH / CV / ABOUT / BLOG

me

I began my career at Liverpool John Moores University, at the Astrophysics Research Institute, under the supervision of Drs Ricardo Schiavon and Rob Crain. My PhD focused on understanding the formation and evolution of our galaxy, the Milky Way. I applied Machine Learning and Bayesian statistics to large scale, multi-dimensional observational data, alongside analysis of state-of-the-art numerical simulations of our universe.

At the University of Birmingham, I worked with the stellar astrophysics group using time-series data analysis methods to pin down the ages of stars in our Galaxy. During that time, we made the first measurements of the ages of stars that originated outside the Milky Way, and used cutting-edge data analysis methodologies to push the uncertainty on those measurements to the lowest ever measured.

In 2020, I attained the prestigious Canadian National Banting Fellowship, which I took to the University of Toronto, where I was the first postdoctoral fellow to hold this fellowship in addition to the Dunlap Institute and Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics fellowships. I mentored and advised a small team of graduate and under-graduate students performing world-leading research in Galaxy evolution, developing new analysis methods emplying machine learning and statistics. I lead a successful proposal for some of the first time on JWST, in which we will be uncovering the history of our neighbouring galaxy, Andromeda.

After nearly 4 years as a postdoc, I left academia in 2022 to join OceanMind as Senior Data Scientist. OceanMind works to empower maritime enforcement and conservation through the application of ML to satellite data. We work with a range of global partners and governments to deploy advanced analysis of vessel data to provide a detailed understanding of what is happening at sea.

© 2022 John E. Mackereth