Professor Tony Bird

Research groups

Research interests

• My main research interest is in instrumentation and data analysis for high energy astrophysics.
• I am a co-investigator for the IBIS imaging telescope on the European Space Agency's INTEGRAL space telescope mission, operating successfully since its launch in 2001.
• I am responsible for compilation of the all-sky survey from IBIS.
• I am also working on data from a number of currently operating gamma-ray telescopes and helping to design the next-generation of space telescopes.

Current research

Professor Tony Bird’s research focus is on astronomy in the X-ray and soft gamma-ray wavebands.

Professor Bird is a co-investigator for the IBIS imager on the ESA INTEGRAL mission, in which has been operational since 2002. He has led the team producing the main survey catalogs from INTEGRAL, the latest of which was released in 2016. He also works on the development on new instrumental and data analysis techniques. Among the many sources in the survey catalogs, Prof. Bird’s personal research interest is in the Supergiant Fast X-ray Binaries, a new class of highly variable binary star system discovered by INTEGRAL. Prof Bird was involved in the technical development of several of the main components of IBIS, and a member of the calibration team.

Prof Bird is involved in the transfer of astronomical technology to other applications, including homeland security and medical imaging. He recently participated in a successful Knowledge Transfer Partnership with local company Symetrica as part of this programme, and led two Space Research and Innovation Network for Technology (SPRINT) programmes.

Research projects