Australia’s largest public astronomy festival! I will be helping out at the MWA tile, and at 8pm, giving a talk on lunar radio astronomy.

Astrofest is held at Curtin Stadium and Edinburgh Oval, off Kent Street, Bentley.

​The stadium is situated on the west side of the Curtin University campus.

Visit Curtin University at Google Maps to get customised directions.

This year I have the very special privilege of being the 74th Nisbet Orator at the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists Annual Scientific Meeting, held here in Perth from 17th to 19th October. I will be taking the audience on a tour of the cosmos, exploring connections between our different fields, and talking about the future of radio astronomy in Western Australia.

Talk with Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker, ARC Future Fellow at Curtin University: 6.30pm - 7pm

See the Moon in Radio Colours. Discover how lunar radio waves allow us to map cosmic magnetic fields, probe the origins of the Universe, and even search for signs of life on distant planets. Don't miss this opportunity to see the Moon — and the Universe — in an entirely new light!

Enjoy the partial solar eclipse with solar telescopes and eclipse glasses, or make your own pinhole camera!

Join me and other Curtin physicists to find out about careers in science, and take part in the most fun acceleration experiments ever (rollercoasters). Open to high school students: talk to your physics teacher to register your class!

Sadly cancelled due to the national public holiday. Huge commiserations to the students affected! Hopefully we can go ahead next year.

Five masters of the human brain for an evening of big ideas, deep thoughts and downright amazement.

I will be MCing this amazing event: we’ll explore the human brain with five incredible speakers. Neuroscientists, machine learning mathemeticians – even a world-class magician! – each with a fascinating perspective on the organ we rely on the most and understand the least.

Join 500 like-minded TED enthusiasts through the weird and wonderful world of thought. Our most thought-provoking Salon yet! 

What would it really take for humans to journey to Mars? Planetary scientist Katarina Miljkovic, Mars volunteer Josh Richards, and children’s author HM Waugh talk to astronomer Natasha Hurley-Walker about the problems we’d need to solve to get there and what they’ll be putting in their own backpacks.

Who will go home with the title of Australia’s Favourite Science Shirt in 2022?

I’m one of 16 awesome scientists and artists from across the country currently creating 8 super cool science shirt designs for #ScienceWeek. Now it is time to determine Australia's Favourite Science Shirt.

Hosted by Nate Byrne, ABC Breakfast Weather Presenter, our scientist and artist pairs will have 60 seconds to pitch their shirt design to a panel of esteemed judges and YOU at home.

Learn about the scientists and artists.

Vote for your favourite for your chance to win a Shirty Science shirt.

At the end of 2021, a group of astronomers detected unusual signals from deep in the heart of the Milky Way. More recently, another group happened upon a celestial object releasing giant bursts of energy, unlike anything ever seen before. These mysterious signals, which seem natural, were discovered using recently built radio astronomy facilities, such as the Murchison Widefield Array telescope and the ASKAP radio telescope, both in Australia. These objects are unique so far, and radio astronomers around the world are looking back in their data to see if there have been similar detections in other parts of the galaxy. Are these rare one-off events or a vast new population we never noticed before?

To discuss these discoveries, we invited two researchers: Tara Murphy, professor at the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Sydney, and Natasha Hurley-Walker, head of the extragalactic radio astronomy group at the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, both are involved in the recent publication of these mysterious and transient signals.

Register online to attend, but be quick! There is a 1,000-ticket limit, and the event is nearly at capacity!

At this year’s Science in the Cinema, we will be watching the movie Hidden Figures, which tells the story of the vital role female African American mathematicians played in getting the U.S. space program off the ground in the early 1960s. Midway we’ll stop for discussion with local scientists and experts on topics related to the movie, with some pizza to see us through the rest of the evening.

The Curiosity Showcase is an academic and networking event hosted once a semester by the Curtin Students’ Physics Association. The Showcase is comprised of two partitions of presentations and panels divided by a networking lunch. The entire Curiosity Showcase is free for everyone.

I will be presenting on Big Data in Astrophysics at 1.20pm, taking questions, and participating in a panel discussion afterwards.

The first of a series of TEDx KingsPark events exploring the world around us, I’m guest curating four fantastic speakers at the forefront of Western Australian astronomy and space science.

I spoke to 750 enthusiastic students and teachers about my career pathway and my takeways on how to succeed in science. Afterwards I toured the classrooms and met some brilliant Year 11 and Year 12 students who asked me a wonderful variety of questions.

As part of the International Astronomical Union Early Career Researcher Discourse series, I shared my perspective on how to make astronomy more sustainable, for the benefit of future generations, but also our science right here and now. If you missed the talk, you can watch it again on YouTube.

As part of the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre’s new bi-monthly “Supercomputing Series”, I’m part of a panel representing the astronomy community, as we discuss possibilities of the Centre’s new capabilities. This event will also see the creation of a Community of Practice (CoP) where practitioners will have the opportunity to connect and discuss topics of interest, share best practices, and help answer each other’s questions on astronomy and HPC.

In partnership with the Pawsey Supercomputing Center and Edith Cowan University, I’ll be sharing the story of my career and helping with a workshop. We’ll be talking about data visualisation, cloud computing, and supercomputing, sharing our thoughts on the future including the Square Kilometre Array, Bioinformatics, and Genomics, and playing with real data! In the spirit of International Women's Day, I hope to encourage girls in STEM pathways and careers.

I’ll be talking to Year 6 to 9 students enrolled in Gifted & Talented programmes across Perth about my STEM career, and why and how they might want to kickstart their own STEM journeys.

I’ll be opening the day with a talk on my journey in astronomy, and my memories of school STEM workshops. If you missed this, you must ask me about the marble run story sometime!

I spoke on the steps astronomy is taking to reduce its carbon emissions, in order to tackle the existential threat of climate change. I also shared my astronomical perspective on the longer-term issue we face: that of infinite growth on a finite planet.

Join me and four other wonderful scientists as we tell the stories of science – the heroes, the egos, the breakthroughs and the mistakes of genius. From forgotten history and lonely laboratories, science and scientists quite literally take centre stage. I’ll be talking about the very first radio astronomer, Grote Reber.

Powerful radio telescopes work in remote locations to give us a new view of the universe. Learn about remarkable discoveries by WA's radio astronomers, and how we're building the world's largest telescope.

Astrofest is back in 2020 with an astronomically awesome event the whole family will enjoy! Taking place at Curtin Stadium on Saturday the 29th February this astronomy festival of epic proportions will be an engaging celebration of Australian science. As well as optical and radio telescopes observing throughout the day and night, Astrofest will feature a myriad of interesting, engaging and exciting indoor and outdoor activities for the whole family. There will also be many different telescopes to try out, or you can bring your own for some expert advice in getting the most out of it. Bring an early supper and make yourself comfortable in the picnic area.

I’ll be speaking at the John Curtin Gallery at 19.40: “Stellar forensics: counting cosmic corpses”.

Astronomy in Western Australia: Brighter Skies

The skies over Western Australia are some of the most beautiful in the world, with our clear skies and flat landscape offering stunning views of our Milky Way and beyond. In the last ten years, astronomers have flocked to Western Australia -- and we've been building something quite out of this world. Find out what astronomers are working on right here, right now, in WA: using super telescopes and supercomputers, looking from gravitational waves to black holes and beyond, there is something to inspire everyone in our shared sky.

It’s the biggest topic of them all. Poetry, Indigenous knowledge, speculative fiction and Western astronomy come together in this session on writing about the universe. Travel to the stars with astronomer Natasha Hurley-Walker, poet Alicia Sometimes, and Indigenous astronomy expert Maitland Hill. Chaired by Annabel Smith.

When Apollo 11 blasts off for the Moon, the whole world is watching. On the other side of the planet, Billy, Mickey and Buzz decide to be astronauts too… Take small steps and giant leaps and join Mark Greenwood, author of Moonwalkers, for a special celebration of Australia’s role in one of humanity’s greatest achievements – the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

In this special event for Quantum Words Perth, we will also be making presentations to the successful entrants in the STA Science Talent Search Writing Competition. Be on hand to applaud our young creatives when our special guest, astrophysicist  Natasha Hurley-Walker makes the formal presentations.

The future of work is changing and the potentials of STEM careers are expanding. In this session, three leading science professionals with cool jobs in the fields of astronomy, conservation, and creative technology unpack a little of their working worlds and share insights into what inspired them to pursue their particular career pathways. This is a unique opportunity for the young and science curious to hear from professionals in whose footsteps they may be inspired to follow.