Summary
Dan Wilkins is a Research Assistant Professor of Astronomy at The Ohio State University with a decade of experience probing how accreting supermassive black holes power the Universe’s brightest sources. He blends observational astronomy, theoretical modelling and high-performance simulations with statistics, data science and ML to design next-generation X-ray missions and to augment detectors with AI for enhanced sensitivity. A former Einstein and Kavli fellow, he has led collaborations with NASA, ESA and JAXA and moves fluidly between telescope data, ray-tracing simulations of light near black holes, and novel analysis pipelines. He is also a committed science communicator—regularly lecturing at sea and on broadcast media—and brings uncommon industry experience from running a web-hosting business, giving him practical skills in software, servers and product delivery alongside deep astrophysics expertise.
10 years of coding experience
6 years of employment as a software developer
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Astronomy, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Astronomy at University of Cambridge
High School, High School at King Alfred's
French, German