James Neeson
(he/him)
Teams and roles for James Neeson
Research student
Graduate Demonstrator
Overview
My research focuses on the detection and analysis of gravitational wave signals. These ripples in spacetime are emitted by exotic objects like black holes and neutron stars and provide us with a new window to probe the universe and fundamental physics. My particular area of interest is the detection of unmodelled signals and new source types, and how we can use the properties of these signals to infer the properties of the sources without modelling the source beforehand.
I am a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and am currently undertaking my PhD under the supervision of Prof. Patrick Sutton.
Research
I currently work on unmodelled 'burst' gravitational wave signals, where we attempt to use generic signal features such as the coherent power to detect gravitational wave sources while making minimal prior assumptions about what the source will look like. In particular, I am interested in the so-called inverse problem - how we can reconstruct the source properties from the signal, so that we can tell what type of astrophysical event produced the signal after we have detected it.
Additionally, I am a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and I contribute to the MLy pipeline, which uses machine learning to produce low-latency detection of gravitational wave signals, allowing for multi-messenger followup.
Biography
I undertook my BSc in Theoretical Physics at the University of Edinburgh from 2016-2019, before completing an MSc in Astrophysics at Cardiff University from 2020-2021. I then obtained a PGCE in Secondary Mathematics at the University of Bristol from 2022-2024, and started my PhD at Cardiff in 2024.
Contact Details
Queen's Buildings - North Building, Room 2/04, 5 The Parade, Newport Road, Cardiff, CF24 3AA
Specialisms
- General relativity and gravitational waves