Maynooth University Faculty of Science & Engineering

I am Royal Society - SFI University Research Fellow in the Department of Theoretical Physics. I conduct research into the formation of black holes in the early Universe. Black holes are fascinating object to study oddly because they are at once simply and complex. A black hole is defined by it's mass and spin and that's it. That's the simple part. The complex part is that determining the origin of black holes is very challenging. Their simplicity means they carry no "memory" of their history and hence it is virtually impossible to deduce the age of a black holes by observing one. To help guide my research I use powerful supercomputers to model the formation and evolution of black holes which can then be used to understand how these objects form and grow over cosmic time.