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Dr Ingo Waldmann began his career at UCL as an undergraduate in Astrophysics & Planetary Sciences. Building on his research interests, he was appointed as Senior Research Fellow in the UCL Astrophysics Group in 2014. He became a Core member of the Cosmoparticle Initiative in 2017, was appointed to a Proleptic Lectureship in 2018, and was honoured in the Royal Astronomical Society 2019 list by the Fowler Award in Geophysics. Ingo has just been promoted to Associate Professor in Physics & Astronomy, within the Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences.

Q. Congratulations Ingo! What does this promotion mean for you and you future?

Thanks very much! I’m of course very happy to have been promoted. What this means in practical terms for me and my future remains to be seen. Probably more admin!

Q. You were awarded the Royal Astronomical Society Fowler’s Award last year. What did receiving this award mean to you?

It meant a great deal to me. Being awarded this prize is a great honour and certainly unexpected. I am also delighted to see that the RAS is promoting research into data analysis techniques. Working on the 'how to analyse data’ is fundamentally important in advancing observational astronomy but quite often it is overlooked.

Q. How has being a core member of the Cosmoparticle Initiative contributed towards your research plans?

The Cosmoparticle Hub is a great space to exchange ideas. Though I’m not a cosmologist or particle physicist, but come from a planetary science background, many of the statistical techniques used to analyse complex data are the same. Working in an interdisciplinary setting has helped my research significantly.

Q. What are you currently working on in the Cosmoparticle Hub

I share a PhD student with Prof. Chamkaur Ghag, Omar Jahangir, and together we investigate the use of deep learning to identify potential signatures of WIMPs.

Q. What is your focus and your research plans for the next 5 years?

My main focus will remain on the exoplanet and planetary side of things but through collaborations I’ve been involved in all kinds of unforeseen projects. A recent one being the detection of pirate ships using satellite radar imagery. I’m excited to see what the next five years bring!

Q. Anything else you’d like to add?
The coffee machine is great!