Andrew Benson
Staff Scientist at Observatories of The Carnegie Institution for Science
Pasadena, California, United States
Summary
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Senior🎓
Top SchoolAndrew Benson is a staff scientist and theoretical astrophysicist with 14 years of experience developing sophisticated computational models of galaxy formation, currently based at the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena. He combines deep academic credentials—a PhD from Durham and postdoctoral fellowships at Caltech and Oxford—with hands-on software leadership as lead developer of the Galacticus project. His work spans the full modelling pipeline: building accurate, extensible simulation code, designing novel analysis techniques, and mentoring students and collaborators in research and teaching. Known for translating complex theory into reproducible, production-quality code, he occupies a rare niche between analytic theory and practical software engineering in astrophysics.
14 years of coding experience
PhD, Astrophysics, PhD, Astrophysics at Durham UniversityMPhys, Physics with Astrophysics, MPhys, Physics with Astrophysics at University of Leicester
Github Skills (34)
astrophysics10
galaxy10
solaris8
datasets8
gcc8
gcc-compiler6
data-set6
catalog5
validation-framework5
python-modules4
sax-parser4
rendering4
xml-serialization4
python4
reader3
Programming languages (12)
Github contributions (5)
CTACweb/publications
Mar 2023 - Nov 2025
CTAC publications
Contributions:1 review, 2 PRs, 28 pushes in 2 years 8 months
galacticusorg/galacticusDockerBuildEnv
Apr 2020 - Jun 2026
Docker Build Environment for Galacticus
Contributions:2 releases, 3 PRs, 93 pushes in 6 years 2 months
docker
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