User:SeoR/sandbox/Peter Gallagher (scientist)

Peter T. Gallagher is an Irish astrophysicist, specialised in solar physics and space weather. He is Senior Professor, and Head of Astronomy and Astrophysics, at the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies, and the director of Dunsink Observatory. He is also the head of the radio-telescope project I-LOFAR, at Birr Castle. He is widely cited in his field.

Early life and education
Gallagher, from Clontarf, north Dublin, attended O'Connell School. His father was a fitter and service engineer with Ingersoll Rand, and father and son worked with mechanical and electrical items in the family's back garden. Gallagher pursued chemistry and technical drawing for the Irish Leaving Certificate.

He was the first member of his family to attend college, pursuing a Bachelor of Science at University College Dublin, where he studied a wide range of subjects but moved to focus on physics and specifically astronomy after being given a copy of A Brief History of Time as a present. He qualified with an honours B.Sc. in Physics and Maths in 1995, and secured a place on a funded Masters course in Optoelectronics at Queen's University Belfast, qualifying first in his year, with distinction, in Optoelectronics and Image Processing in 1996. After some work in the Canary Islands, he deepened his academic focus on astronomy and pursued a funded PhD from Queen's, qualifying in Astrophysics in 2000, having defended a thesis entitled Optical and EUV observations of the solar atmosphere.

Career
Gallagher worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at an astronomical facility belonging to the New Jersey Institute of Technology, the Big Bear Solar Observatory in California, and at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center near Washington D.C. Among other tasks he was able to take measurements with NASA's SOHO spacecraft. Having reached the level of Senior Scientist, he was offered a long-term NASA job, but wanted to return to Ireland, and when his wife was offered a post at University College Dublin (UCD) in 2005, they decided to move back together, even at significant reduction in pay, and he secured an initial job at UCD before receiving an opportunity to head the Solar Physics team at Trinity College Dublin. He worked on observations of the sun, "space weather", including disruptive solar storms, and solar physics, and has been quoted by the media on these and related topics, such as the International Heliophysical Year, and certain space expeditions.

Shortly after returning to Ireland he was asked to take a key role in twin NASA solar observation flights back in the USA, designed to study the massively higher temperature of the sun's corona compared to its actual upper layers. This was due to his experience in coordinating solar observations and developing specialised image interpretation software. In 2009 he and his team participated, with the Royal Observatory of Belgium, in a satellite project, Proba2, to study solar storms; they wrote software for two elements. The launch was successful, marked by a launch party in TCD's Science Gallery, attended by diplomatic representatives of Belgium and the Russian Federation, from where the launch was made.

In 2012 he was one of the lead signatories of a letter by a group of active scientists to the Irish Times which expressed concern as to the Irish government's commitment to basic research, and the implications this could have for the country and the avoidance of "brain drain". In 2015 he and some colleagues attempted a solar atmosphere observation from a fixed-wing Irish Air Corps aircraft with a special camera at the time of the last solar eclipse until 2026 to be visible from Europe. Also in 2015, he led the building of a magnetometer network by TCD and the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies, capable of detecting solar storm activity. Professor Gallagher's group also worked with Lockheed-Martin, Eirgrid, and others.

In 2018 Gallagher was appointed as Senior Professor and Head of Astronomy and Astrophysics by the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies. As part of the rol e, he was also appointed as Director of Dunsink Observatory near Dublin.

Radio telescope projects in Ireland
Visiting Birr Castle and demesne, site of what was for decades the world's largest telescope, the Leviathan of Parsonstown, Gallagher made an agreement with the Earl of Rosse to build a solar observatory, and remains Director of what became the Rosse Solar Terrestrial Observatory. Birr, as a small town with no radio-intensive industry, was a suitable site for sensitive radio-telescope instruments. This was followed by his proposing a major project to build and integrate the Irish site of the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) major radio-telescope project, which runs from Ireland to eastern Poland; adding Ireland expanded its scope by about 30%. He agreed the principle with Lord Rosse, then secured 50 thousand euro from Dermot Desmond, who then put him in touch with Denis O'Brien, who called and after discussion, also wired a substantial contribution. Science Foundation Ireland later made a major award, of around 1.4 million euro. Multiple third-level institutions joined the project consortium, contributing around half a million euro, and the project was able to proceed. A local school also fundraised to contibute. The main components were delivered in 30 articulated trucks in summer 2016. The Irish Astronomical Association described Gallagher's role in this project as "almost single-handedly responsible for getting I-LOFAR approved, funded, designed, installed and operational." and the project itself thus: "I-LOFAR now the only astronomical facility producing top-end astronomical research results from the island of Ireland." The Irish LOFAR site was launched in July 2017, and aims included monitoring of solar activity, light waves from the early history of the universe, and potential signals from intelligent extra-terrestrial sources. The I-LOFAR telescope has 3,000 antennae and 55 km of cabling, and provides opportunities for a range of PhD and post-doctoral students, as well as lecturers and professors, to advance their work.

Outreach and popular media
Gallagher has expressed a personal interest in science promotion, and is especially interested in schools from which fewer pupils progress to the sciences. He was involved with the first exhibition of the Science Gallery at Trinity College Dublin, LIGHTWAVE, co-producing with artist Anita Hill an exhibit entitled In the Heliosphere. He remains a member of the advisory and creative panel at the Science Gallery, the Leonardo Group. His team were involved with, and he commented on, the sunspotter.org public "participative science" initiative.

Gallagher featured in episode 8, related to space, of the radio series "Bright Sparks", as broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1; his wife featured in episode 2 of the same series.

Academic and professional bodies
Gallagher is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a member of the Institute of Physics. He has been chairperson of the Astronomical Sciences Group of Ireland and vice-chairperson of the Royal Irish Academy's Astronomy and Space Research Committee.

He was elected as a member of the Solar System Working Group of the European Space Agency (ESA), dealing with mission evaluations for 2015-2025, and of the ESA's 12-member Space Science Advisory Committee from 2017 to 2019.

Recognition
In 2017, he was awarded the rank of Chevalier in the Ordre des Palmes Academiques for his scientific work; this award, established by Napoleon and known as "the purple", is the oldest civilian decoration in France. His wife was made a Chevalier at the same ceremony, for her work in phylogenetics and genomics.

Publication
Gallagher has published a wide range of article, and is, according to Scopus as of October 2020, highly-cited, with a h-index of 36.

Personal life
Gallagher met his future wife, Emma Teeling, in the first year of his science degree at UCD. They kept in touch while pursuing advanced studies in Belfast and elsewhere, living near Washington D.C. for part of their time in the US, and moving back to Ireland together when Teeling received a job offer. They have two sons.