Menu Close
Close Tray

IOPConnect

Log in to personalise your experience and connect with IOP.


2024 IOP Technician Award: Ken W Smith and David R Young

Business, Higher Education and National Research Facility Award

Ken Smith and David Young for internationally recognised technical expertise, exceptional software skills and dedication to astrophysics, enabling world-leading discoveries and the formation of a European supernova community. 


Members of the supernova group at Queen's University Belfast are global leaders in discovering cosmic explosions and understanding their physics, playing leading roles in major international sky surveys. This has been made possible due to the world-leading software engineering from Drs Ken Smith (pictured left) and David Young (pictured right). 

Their work underpins many of the most significant discoveries in the field over the last 15 years: the first detection of optical light from a gravitational wave source, the first link between extreme supernovae and massive hydrogen-poor stars, the first discovery of a star interacting with a fast-spinning supermassive black hole, and the discovery of the fastest and brightest supernova ever seen in a nearby galaxy.

Smith and Young, as PhD physicists, bring exceptional software skills and a deep understanding of the importance of software infrastructure in modern science. Their technical expertise and dedication to astrophysics are a powerful combination for the supernova group and its international collaborations.

Smith designs and manages the fundamental databases storing billions of source detections from the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) and Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) surveys, two of the major sky surveys that have revolutionised time-domain astronomy. He has built a complex end-to-end data processing system to serve all detections from these surveys to the team and the public, enabling rapid target selection and follow-up observations.

Young created a code to match every new source in the sky to every major astronomical catalogue, allowing new sources to be classified rapidly. He also built and maintains the marshal software used by the Public European Southern Observatory Spectroscopic Survey of Transient Objects (PESSTO) to manage all their observations, leading to nearly 300 papers. This platform enables hundreds of users to collaborate in real-time and schedule observations effectively. He is now leading the development of spectroscopic processing software for the next major European supernova survey.

Smith and Young are also working on another transformational project, alongside colleagues from the University of Edinburgh, building Lasair: a key component of UK participation in the upcoming Vera C Rubin Observatory. Their prototype system has been running for several years on current surveys, already enabling almost 100 scientific papers.

They have devoted their careers to working behind the scenes, bolstering UK leadership within major international projects. Their joint efforts have garnered recognition on the global stage, and their software engineering and infrastructure work has been instrumental in fostering a European collaborative community, spanning from senior professors to research students.