Simon Ellingsen is an Executive Director of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research ( ICRAR) and is based at the

University of Western Australia University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Crawley, Western Australia, Crawley, a suburb in the City of Perth local government area. UW ...

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Education

Ellingsen attended

University of Tasmania The University of Tasmania (UTAS) is a public research university, primarily located in Tasmania, Australia. Founded in 1890, it is Australia's fourth oldest university. Christ College (University of Tasmania), Christ College, one of the unive ...

, located in

Hobart, Tasmania Hobart ( ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of the island state of Tasmania, Australia. Located in Tasmania's south-east on the estuary of the River Derwent (Tasmania), River Derwent, it is the southernmo ...

, where he received a

Bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

(

First-class honours The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading structure used for undergraduate degrees or bachelor's degrees and integrated master's degrees in the United Kingdom. The system has been applied, sometimes with significant var ...

) in 1991. He went on to obtain a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in 1996, with the thesis "Class II Methanol Masers in Star Formation Regions"

Career

Ellingsen is best known for his work on

star formation Star formation is the process by which dense regions within molecular clouds in interstellar space—sometimes referred to as "stellar nurseries" or "star-forming regions"—Jeans instability, collapse and form stars. As a branch of astronomy, sta ...

and the structure of the

Milky Way The Milky Way or Milky Way Galaxy is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the #Appearance, galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars in other arms of the galax ...

, particularly through observations of methanol

masers A maser is a device that produces coherent electromagnetic waves ( microwaves), through amplification by stimulated emission. The term is an acronym for microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. Nikolay Basov, Alexander Pro ...

. Notable contributions include the first unbiased search for 6.7 GHz methanol

, which identified a large number of previously unknown regions of high-mass star formation, discovery of a number of new interstellar methanol

maser A maser is a device that produces coherent electromagnetic waves ( microwaves), through amplification by stimulated emission. The term is an acronym for microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. Nikolay Basov, Alexander Pr ...

transitions and the demonstration that class II methanol

trace a very early phase of high-mass star formation. He has used observations of methanol absorption to help constrain changes in the

proton-to-electron mass ratio In physics, the proton-to-electron mass ratio (symbol ''μ'' or ''β'') is the rest mass of the proton (a baryon found in atoms) divided by that of the electron (a lepton found in atoms), a dimensionless quantity, namely: :''μ'' = The number in ...

and made the first detection of extragalactic class I methanol and HC₃N

toward NGC253. He continues to work as a researcher at the

. Ellingsen has contributed to efforts to locate the

Wow! signal The Wow! signal was a strong narrowband radio signal detected on August 15, 1977, by Ohio State University's Big Ear radio telescope in the United States, then used to support the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The signal appeare ...

with American data analyst, astronomer, and author Robert H. Gray. In 1998 Ellingsen and

Gray Grey (more frequent in British English) or gray (more frequent in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning that it has no chroma. It is the color of a cloud-covered s ...

conducted searches using the 26-meter dish at the

Mount Pleasant Radio Observatory The Mount Pleasant Radio Observatory is a radio astronomy, radio-astronomy-based observatory owned and operated by the University of Tasmania, located 20 km east of Hobart in Cambridge, Tasmania. It is home to three radio astronomy antennas ...

and Ellingsen made six 14-hour observations where the Big Ear was pointing when it found the

Wow! Signal The Wow! signal was a strong narrowband radio signal detected on August 15, 1977, by Ohio State University's Big Ear radio telescope in the United States, then used to support the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The signal appeare ...

and Ellingsen published "A Search for Periodic Emissions at the Wow Locale" in the October 2002 issue of The Astrophysical Journal, reporting on searches for the Wow! signal. Ellingsen had a number of roles at the

. Ellingsen has been involved in running research facilities and associated projects at The University of Tasmania for many years, most recently a Space Infrastructure Fund grant to construct a new satellite tracking antenna at the

Greenhill Observatory The Greenhill Observatory is an astronomical observatory operated by the University of Tasmania (UTAS) on Bisdee Tier, near Spring Hill, Tasmania. The observatory is located roughly 50 km (30 miles) north of Hobart, (Australia). The nearest ...

. Ellingsen was appointed as a lecturer in physics in 2000, promoted to senior lecturer in 2005, to Associate Professor in 2010 and to Professor in 2015. He was Head of Discipline for Physics from 2015 – 2019, becoming Acting Head of School for the School of Natural Sciences in July 2019 and was appointed to the position of Dean of Natural Sciences in November 2020. In April 2024 he commenced as the Executive Director for the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research ( ICRAR) and is based at the

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ellingsen, Simon Living people 1969 births University of Tasmania alumni Academic staff of the University of Tasmania 21st-century Australian physicists Academic staff of the University of Western Australia Radio astronomers Australian astrophysicists