Dr Andrew Wilson

I am a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Astrophysics Group, conducting research into young stars.

My primary interest is investigating the distribution of young stars in the nearby Milky Way. I constructed a machine learning tool to identify candidate young stars, and then obtain follow-up spectra using WEAVE, a multi-object spectrograph on the William Herschel Telescope. This enables me to confirm which candidates are genuine young stars, and allows the classifier results to be calibrated into probabilities.

I have a secondary research interest in magnetism during the early life of stars, using spectra obtained with the VLT to analyses starspot coverage on T-Tauri stars.

After studying Astronomy & Physics at UCL in the 1990's, I had a successful IT career, working at a variety of financial institutions in the City of London. I retained my interest in astronomy and scientific research, holding positions in the British Astronomical Association and studing for a mathematics degree with the Open Univesity during weekends. From the late 2010's I switched to part-time working so I could undertake research towards a PhD in the Astrophysics Group at Exeter, where I am now a full-time researcher.