Research data leader
he/him
20+ years leading research data infrastructure in astronomy. Lead of the Data Central Science Platform. Currently Head of Research Data & Software at Australian Astronomical Optics, Macquarie University. I specialise in building platforms, teams, and strategies that give research communities real ownership of their data.
Your sensors are telescopes. Your events are photons. Your pipeline has to run for 20 years. Welcome to astronomical data engineering: where the stakes are high, the volumes are extreme, and a bug in your pipeline doesn’t just cost money. It could invalidate the science. Long before “data engineer” was a job title, astronomers were solving problems the modern data stack is only now catching up to: massive ingestion, airtight provenance, multi-decade pipeline lifespans, and users who need to trust their data completely… or the discovery doesn’t count. Drawing on 20 years of building data infrastructure for the astronomical community, I’ll share lessons that translate directly to your work: how to build pipelines that last, why provenance has to be designed in from day one, and what it really means to build a platform your users will actually trust.
