Peter T. Gallagher

FRAS FTCD MInstP
Born
Clontarf, Dublin, Ireland
NationalityIrish
Alma materUniversity College Dublin (BSc), Queen's University Belfast (MSc, PhD)
Known forSolar studies, Ireland's first research-grade radio-telescope
SpouseEmma Teeling
Children2
AwardsChevalier in the Ordre des Palmes académiques
Scientific career
FieldsAstrophysics, Astronomy
InstitutionsDublin Institute for Advanced Studies (and Trinity College Dublin)
ThesisOptical and EUV observations of the solar atmosphere (2000)

Peter Thomas Gallagher FRAS FTCD MInstP is an Irish astrophysicist. He specialises in solar physics, notably solar storms and their impact on the Earth. He is Senior Professor, and Head of Astronomy and Astrophysics, at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, director of Dunsink Observatory, and an adjunct professor at Trinity College Dublin.[1] He is also the head of the radio-telescope project I-LOFAR, at Birr Castle. He is widely cited in his field and often quoted in the media.[2][3][4]

Early life and education

Peter T. Gallagher was born to Peter (died 2003) and Patricia Gallagher, of Clontarf,[5] a northern suburb of Dublin. He has a brother and a sister.[6] He attended the local Belgrove Primary School, and for secondary school, the Irish Christian Brothers' O'Connell School on North Circular Road, central Dublin.[7] His father was a fitter and service engineer with Ingersoll Rand, and father and son worked with mechanical and electrical items in the family's back garden. Gallagher pursued chemistry and technical drawing for the Irish Leaving Certificate.[8][4] He played Gaelic football to minor level with Clontarf GAA, and youth and adult rugby with Clontarf Football Club, and in his teens, he played lead guitar in a heavy metal/punk band.[4]

He was the first member of his family to attend college, pursuing a Bachelor of Science at University College Dublin, where he studied a wide range of subjects but moved to focus on physics and specifically astronomy after being given a copy of A Brief History of Time as a present. He qualified with an honours B.Sc. in Physics and Maths in 1995, and secured a place on a funded Masters course in Optoelectronics at Queen's University Belfast, qualifying first in his year, with distinction, in Optoelectronics and Image Processing in 1996. After some work in the Canary Islands, he deepened his academic focus on astronomy and pursued a funded PhD from Queen's. He received an offer to work in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge University, the department where Stephen Hawking worked, but declined this.[5] He qualified in Astrophysics in 2000,[4] having defended a thesis entitled Optical and EUV observations of the solar atmosphere.[9]

Career

Gallagher worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at two astronomical facilities of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, the Owens Valley Solar Array and the Big Bear Solar Observatory, both in California, and at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center near Washington, D.C.[10] Among other works he was able to take measurements with NASA's SOHO spacecraft.[8] Having reached the level of Senior Scientist, he was offered a long-term NASA job, but wanted to return to Ireland, and when his wife was offered a post at University College Dublin (UCD) in 2005, they decided to move back together, even at significant reduction in pay, and he secured an initial job teaching Space Science at UCD before receiving an opportunity to head the Solar Physics & Space Weather Research Group[10] at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) from the beginning of 2006.[8][4] He worked on observations of the Sun, space weather[11][10][12] including disruptive solar storms, and solar physics, and has been quoted by the media on these[13] and related topics, such as the International Heliophysical Year,[14] and certain space expeditions.[15]

Shortly after returning to Ireland he was asked to take a key role in twin NASA solar observation flights back in the US, designed to study the massively higher temperature of the Sun's corona compared to its actual upper layers. This was due to his experience in coordinating solar observations and developing specialised image interpretation software.[16] In 2009 he and his team participated, with the Royal Observatory of Belgium, in a satellite project, PROBA-2, to study solar storms; they wrote software for two elements.[17] The launch was successful, and was marked by a launch party in Trinity College's Science Gallery, attended by diplomatic representatives of Belgium, and of the Russian Federation, from where the launch was made.[18]

In 2012 he was one of the lead signatories of a letter by a group of active scientists to the Irish Times which expressed concern as to the Irish government's lack of commitment to basic research, and the implications this could have for the country and the avoidance or risk of "brain drain".[19] In 2015 he and some colleagues attempted a solar atmosphere observation from a fixed-wing Irish Air Corps aircraft with a special camera at the time of the last solar eclipse to be visible from Europe until 2026.[20] Also in 2015, he led the building of a magnetometer network by TCD and the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, capable of detecting solar storm activity.[21] Professor Gallagher's group also worked with Lockheed-Martin, Eirgrid, and other companies.[22]

In 2018 Gallagher was appointed as Senior Professor and Head of Astronomy and Astrophysics by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS); he remains an adjunct professor at Trinity College Dublin.[23] As part of the role, he was also appointed as Director of the historic Dunsink Observatory, owned by the State and managed by DIAS, near Dublin.[24] He has stated that he would like to open up the observatory campus, which is near a cycling and walking "greenway" along the Royal Canal of Ireland and the River Tolka, adding a coffee shop and growing visitor numbers from 5,000 to 50,000, making it s significant tourist and cultural attraction for West Dublin.[25]

Radio telescope projects in Ireland

Visiting Birr Castle and demesne, site of what was for decades the world's largest telescope, the Leviathan of Parsonstown, in search of a suitable site for radio-telescopy, Gallagher made an agreement with the Earl of Rosse to build a solar observatory. An initial simple vertical antenna site was made, and later elaborated and Gallagher remains director of what became the Rosse Solar Terrestrial Observatory.[22][4] Birr, almost in the centre of the island and as a small town with no radio-intensive industry, was a good "quiet site" for sensitive radio-telescope instruments.[26]

There followed a proposal by Gallagher for a major project, namely to build and integrate the Irish site of the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) major radio-telescope project,[4] which would then run from Ireland to Laszy in eastern Poland, the addition of Ireland expanded its baseline and observational power by about 30%.[27] He agreed the principle with Lord Rosse, then secured 50 thousand euro from Dermot Desmond, who then put him in touch with Denis O'Brien, who called and after discussion also wired a substantial contribution.[4] Science Foundation Ireland later made a major award, of around 1.4 million euro. Multiple third-level institutions joined the project consortium, contributing around half a million euro collectively, and with other donations, such as from a local school in Birr, the project was able to proceed.[28] The main components were delivered from the Netherlands, where LOFAR is headquartered (in Groningen), in 30 articulated trucks in summer 2016.[27] The Irish Astronomical Association described Gallagher's role in this project as "almost single-handedly responsible for getting I-LOFAR approved, funded, designed, installed and operational" and the project itself thus: "I-LOFAR now the only astronomical facility producing top-end astronomical research results from the island of Ireland."[2] The Irish LOFAR site was launched in July 2017, and aims included monitoring of solar activity, light waves from the early history of the universe, and potential signals from intelligent extraterrestrial sources.[28] The I-LOFAR telescope has 3,000 antennae and 55 km of cabling, and provides opportunities for a range of PhD and post-doctoral students, as well as lecturers and professors, to advance their work.[29]

Gallagher has expressed a personal interest in science promotion, and has described a special interest in schools from which fewer pupils progress to the sciences.[30][4] He was involved with the first exhibition of the Science Gallery at Trinity College Dublin, LIGHTWAVE, co-producing with artist Anita Hill an exhibit entitled In the Heliosphere, which allowed visitors to feel an impression of the effect of solar flares.[31] He remains a member of the advisory and creative panel at the Science Gallery, the Leonardo Group.[32] His team were involved with, and he commented on, the sunspotter.org public "participative science" initiative.[33]

Gallagher featured in episode 8, related to space, of the radio series "Bright Sparks", as broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1; his wife featured in episode 2 of the same series.[34][35] As Director of I-LOFAR, Gallagher also co-presented a programme, "13 Billion Miles from Birr" on RTE TV, in 2017, to mark its launch and planned work.[36]

Academic and professional bodies

Gallagher is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a member of the Institute of Physics. He has been chairperson of the Astronomical Sciences Group of Ireland and vice-chairperson of the Royal Irish Academy's Astronomy and Space Research Committee.[note 1][22]

He was elected as a member of the Solar System Working Group of the European Space Agency (ESA), dealing with mission evaluations for 2015–2025,[22] and of the ESA's 12-member Space Science Advisory Committee from 2017[22] to 2019.[37]

Recognition

In 2017, he was awarded the rank of Chevalier in the Ordre des Palmes académiques for his scientific work; this award, established by Napoleon and known as "the purple", is the oldest civilian decoration in France. His wife was made a Chevalier at the same ceremony, for her work in phylogenetics and genomics.[38][39]

Publication

Gallagher has published a wide range of articles, and is, according to Scopus as of October 2020, highly cited, with a h-index of 37.[40] His most-cited paper is "An observational overview of solar flares" in Space Science Reviews (2011), of which he was a co-author. He most-cited first-author paper is "Rapid acceleration of a coronal mass ejection in the low corona and implications for propagation" in the Astrophysical Journal Letters (2003).[41]

Personal life

Gallagher met his future wife, Emma Teeling, in the first year of his science degree at UCD. They kept in touch while pursuing advanced studies in Belfast and elsewhere, living near Washington, D.C., for part of their time in the US, and moving back to Ireland together when Teeling received a job offer.[4] They have two sons.[38] The Teeling-Gallagher boys developed a Minecraft LOFAR environment which was mentioned on the websites of the European and Irish LOFAR consortia.[42] He coaches youth rugby teams at Clontarf FC.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ This committee consists of both members of the Academy and non-members such as Prof. Gallagher

References

  1. ↑ "Professor Peter Thomas Gallagher". Trinity Research. Trinity College Dublin. Retrieved 9 October 2020. ... Adjunct Professor, Physics ... nearly Eur4M in funding ... Prof. Gallagher's group are world-leaders in solar physics and space weather research ... elected to Fellowship of Trinity College Dublin in 2012
  2. 1 2 "Irish Astronomical Association (Home)". Irish Astronomical Association. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
  3. ↑ "Solar Physics and Space Weather". Trinity College Dublin. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Shaw (producer), Helen. "The Family of Things – E13 – Peter Gallagher". soundcloud.com. Athena Media via Soundcloud. Retrieved 24 September 2020.
  5. 1 2 Goodbody, Will. "Out of This World". No. Spring 2017. p. 15. {{cite magazine}}: Cite magazine requires |magazine= (help)
  6. ↑ "Gallagher (Clontarf, Dublin)". Evening Herald. 10 March 2003. p. 52. - March 7, 2003 ... Peter .. husband of Patricia .. father of Peter, David and Anne-Marie ...
  7. ↑ "Keynote Address: Tuning in to the Radio Universe from Birr Castle". Irish Science Teachers' Association / Eol-Oidí na hÉireann 57th Annual Conference. Dublin, Ireland: Irish Science Teachers’ Association. April 2019. p. 11.
  8. 1 2 3 Duke, Seán (1 September 2010). "Ireland's sun-worshipper". Science Spin. No. Sept–Oct 2010. Dublin, Ireland.
  9. ↑ "Optical and EUV observations of the solar atmosphere". Queen's University Belfast – Library. Retrieved 2 October 2020.
  10. 1 2 3 Gallagher, Peter T. "Prof. Peter T. Gallagher". Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
  11. ↑ Gallagher, Peter. "Lecture 18 – Space Weather" (PDF). Trinity College Dublin. Retrieved 14 October 2020.
  12. ↑ Blake, Seán P.; Gallagher, Peter T.; McCauley, Joe; Jones, Alan G.; Hogg, Colin; Campanyà, Joan; Beggan, Ciarán D.; Thomson, Alan W. P.; Kelly, Gemma S.; Bell, David (December 2016). "Geomagnetically induced currents in the Irish power network during geomagnetic storms: GICs IN THE IRISH POWER NETWORK". Space Weather. 14 (12): 1136–1154. arXiv:1611.08587. doi:10.1002/2016SW001534. S2CID 119517107. Retrieved 14 October 2020.
  13. ↑ O'Connell, Claire (10 March 2012). "Give me a crash course in . . . solar storms". Irish Times. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  14. ↑ Barron, Danielle (21 December 2006). "Sun comes into play for Year of the Pig". Irish Times. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
  15. ↑ O'Sullivan, Kevin (26 November 2018). "Mars landing: Nasa probe arrives on planet after 'terror descent'". Irish Times. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
  16. ↑ Dick, Ahlstrom (9 February 2006). "Hot project for Irish scientist". Irish Times. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
  17. ↑ Ahlstrom, Dick (28 October 2009). "Trinity team joins satellite solar study". Irish Times. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
  18. ↑ Ahlstrom, Dick (3 November 2009). "TCD celebrates input in twin satellites launch". Irish Times. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
  19. ↑ Ahlstrom, Dick (22 August 2012). "Research funding at risk, warn scientists". Irish Times. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
  20. ↑ McCrea, Jonathan (20 March 2015). "Chasing the eclipse with a €40,000 scientific camera". Irish Times. Retrieved 30 September 2020. Perhaps Prof Gallagher felt a sense of destiny. Not only did the solar eclipse fall on the 20th, but so too did the spring equinox and also his birthday.
  21. ↑ Gorey, Colm (6 July 2015). "Irish physicists develop advanced solar flare warning system". Silicon Republic. Retrieved 29 September 2020.
  22. 1 2 3 4 5 "Prof. Peter T. Gallagher, MInstP, FRAS, FTCD". Trinity College Dublin. Retrieved 3 October 2020. Professor in Astrophysics and Associate Dean of Research / Prof. Gallagher leads solar physics and space weather research at Trinity College Dublin. His research is primarily concerned with understanding the fundamental physics of solar storms and their impacts on Earth.
  23. ↑ Gorey, Colm (4 October 2018). "DIAS appoints Prof Peter Gallagher as head of astronomy and astrophysics". Silicon Republic. Dublin, Ireland. Retrieved 29 September 2020. A leading figure in the Irish astronomical community, Prof Peter Gallagher will now lead DIAS's astronomy and astrophysics division...
  24. ↑ "Open nights – early 2019". Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Dublin, Ireland. Prof. Peter Gallagher (DIAS) ... the new Senior Professor of the Astronomy and Astrophysics Section and Observatory Director...
  25. ↑ O'Callaghan, Gavin (11 February 2020). "Treasured historical observatory in Dunsink picking up pieces after joyriders smash into entrance". Dublin Live. Retrieved 26 October 2020.
  26. ↑ "Clear Skies in Birr for Radio Astronomy". I-LOFAR. 9 April 2017. Retrieved 26 October 2020.
  27. 1 2 Ahlstrom, Dick (11 February 2016). "Lofar telescope is a 'major step forward for Irish astronomy'". Irish Times. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
  28. 1 2 McGreevy, Ronan (27 July 2017). "After a century, world-class astronomy returns to Birr Castle". Irish Times. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
  29. ↑ Purcell, Conor (16 November 2017). "A new age of radio astronomy at Birr Castle". Irish Times. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
  30. ↑ Kearins, Aoife (4 January 2019). "Dunsink Observatory's Newest Scientific Enigma". Retrieved 3 October 2020. Science outreach is more than important – I think it's vital.
  31. ↑ Meany, Helen (26 January 2008). "Bright Spark (section: Trip the Light Fantastic)". Irish Times. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
  32. ↑ "Leonardo Group". Science Gallery Dublin. Trinity College Dublin. Retrieved 2 October 2020.
  33. ↑ O'Connell, Claire (8 January 2015). "Access Science: Learn how to forecast solar flares in your spare time". Irish Times. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
  34. ↑ "New RTÉ Radio series "Bright Sparks" starts this Sunday". Irish Tech News. 19 May 2015. Retrieved 25 September 2020.
  35. ↑ "The Series". Bright Sparks Radio. Athena Media for RTÉ Radio 1. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
  36. ↑ "13 BILLION LIGHT YEARS FROM BIRR". RTE.ie. RTE. 19 October 2017. Retrieved 14 October 2020. ... a cutting-edge technological adventure film set in rural Ireland in the company of presenter Jonathan McCrea and professor Peter Gallagher of Trinity College Dublin.
  37. ↑ Gorey, Colm (10 March 2017). "Trinity's Peter Gallagher joins ESA science committee for future space missions". Silicon Republic. Retrieved 29 September 2020.
  38. 1 2 "Husband-and-wife scientists awarded Chevalier (Knight) of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques". University College Dublin. 19 May 2017. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  39. ↑ "Husband and wife scientists made Chevaliers by French government". Trinity College Dublin. 16 May 2017. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  40. ↑ "Peter T. Gallagher". Scopus. Reed-Elsevier. Retrieved 14 October 2020.
  41. ↑ "Peter T Gallagher". Google Scholar. Retrieved 26 October 2020.
  42. ↑ "LOFAR Minecraft – LOFAR Enters the Virtual Universe". Astron (The Netherlands Institute for Astronomy). Retrieved 4 October 2020.
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