Prof Ray Norris

Ray Norris uses radio-telescopes to study the evolution of galaxies in the Universe. He was educated at Cambridge University, and University of Manchester, UK, and moved to Australia to join CSIRO, where he became Head of Astrophysics, Deputy Director of the Australia Telescope, and then Director of the Australian Astronomy Major National Research Facility which, amongst other things, provided the initial funding for the ASKAP telescope. He initiated and led the international EMU project which uses ASKAP to study the evolution of galaxies, and led the EMU team that discovered the mysterious ORCs (or Odd Radio Circles) that are still unexplained.

He is now semi-retired, although his research output isn't.

He was also a professor of Data Science at Western Sydney University, where he led projects to develop machine learning techniques to extract the science from the many petabytes of data generated by telescopes such as ASKAP. He has also held professorships at University of Tasmania, Swinburne University, and Macquarie University, and has supervised 28 PhD students.

He also studies the astronomy of Indigenous Australians and is fascinated and inspired by their many intellectual achievements as they sought to understand their Universe.