Ross Church

Astrophysics

I am a lecturer in Astrophysics at the Department of Physics, Lund University.

Research interests

I study the physics of stars and stellar systems, their evolution, and the astronomical consquences. In particular I am interested in:

• The dynamics of stellar clusters, the build-up of the Milky Way and the origin of the Sun,
• High-energy astrophysical phenomena, such as supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, and gravitational waves, and
• Stellar nucleosynthesis, and the measurement and use of stars' elemental abundances.

My work is funded by, amongst others, The Swedish Research Council, The Swedish National Space Board, The Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, and the eSSENCE collaboration.

Large collaborative projects that I am involved with are the LISA gravitational wave observatory, where I am the Swedish representative on the consortium board, and 4MOST, where I am one of the co-leads of the analysis pipeline for stellar spectra.

Teaching

I teach part of the following courses:

• Stellar structure and evolution (ASTM25) (main lecturer and course responsible)
• High-energy astrophysics (ASTM12) (main lecturer and course responsible)
• Galaxies and cosmology (ASTA33) (co-lecturer)
• Basic Statistical Physics and Quantum Statistics (FYSB23) (co-lecturer)
• Nuclear physics (one lecture)

I also supervise master and bachelor projects in astrophysics.

Contact

• Email: ross [at] astro [dot] lu [dot] se
• Phone: +46 46 222 1609
• Post: Lund Observatory, Box 43, SE-221 00 Lund, Sweden
• In person: Sölvegatan 27, office B220

Brief professional biography

I have been working at Lund University since 2009, and have been a lecturer since 2018.  During 2011 and 2012 my work in Lund was funded by a Marie Curie fellowship; during 2009 and 2010 I was funded by the Wenner-Gren foundation. Prior to that I was a research fellow in the School of Mathematical Sciences, Monash University. My undergraduate education was in physics and my PhD in astronomy at Cambridge University.